Excite Kids' Minds During San Diego Festival of Science and Engineering Week March 17-24

The San Diego Festival of Science and Engineering (formerly known as the San Diego Science Festival) kicks off Saturday, March 17 with events at eight different locations across San Diego, including San Diego State University, Balboa Park and California State University San Marcos.

The Festival, which runs through March 24, features a week of interactive demonstrations, hands-on activities and dynamic speakers to engage kids and families in science and engineering.

There are nearly 40 events during the week, culminating on EXPO DAY, the grand-slam-science-and-engineering-finale at PETCO Park, Saturday, March 24.
Many of the festival events are designed specifically for class field trips. Free transportation is also provided by the Festival. Over 55,000 kids, families, scientists, engineers, educators, and other community members are expected to take part in this year's activities, with over 20,000 people attending on EXPO DAY, a free-to-the-community event!

For detailed event information, visit: http://www.sdsciencefestival.com/.

Other noteworthy details include:

Festival Events March 17-23 are great field trip opportunitiesMany of our Festival Week events are specially designed for organized classroom field trips. We also have more events ALL OVER San Diego County this year. Many events require pre-registration. For details about each of the 38 Festival Week events, go to http://www.sdsciencefestival.com/2012-festival/festival-week-events.html.

Free MTS transportation to EXPO Day Generous sponsors have underwritten the cost of MTS (Trolley, Coaster) DayTripper Classroom Passes for all schools in San Diego County. This is a great opportunity to help the Festival go green! We also encourage you to choose this option since it gives you flexibility in the size of group you bring, time of departure/return, and because this program is so affordable we can bring many more students to the EXPO!

Science Festival credit for attendance allows teachers to create meaningful experience for students at EXPOHow can you provide an enriched learning opportunity for your students who attend the EXPO? We suggest that you design a custom opportunity for students to answer open-ended questions. This will allow them to choose how long they spend at any booth and which booths they visit. Students can get a stamp from the merchandise booth or the “Ask Me” booth to show they were there.

ASK ME, I’m a Scientist or Engineer boothOnce again this year, the Festival will have a designated booth where kids can interview scientists and/or engineers. It will be hosted by the Jacobs School of Engineering students, and the kids can interview those undergraduate and graduate students too! Scientists and engineers from industry and academia will volunteer for one-hour shifts to sit and talk with the kids, answering their questions and engaging them in the possibilities of science. This activity would be a great to incorporate into a Credit for Attendance project. Again, students can get a stamp from this booth or the Festival merchandise booth if the teacher creates this as a credit for attendance option.

NEW THIS YEAR: The Home Run Science Challenge is an all-new EXPO DAY that challenges students to “run the bases” by learning key science concepts at special EXPO DAY exhibits. To complete the challenge activity and receive a prize, students must visit five featured exhibits and verbally answer a question on the science or engineering content to receive a stamp on their worksheet. Students will retain their completed challenge worksheet to bring into class and validate their participation, making this an excellent opportunity for an assignment or extra credit. The challenge worksheet will contain a website link to additional background content on the featured exhibits for teacher use. This activity has an expected target audience of grades 4-8, but is adaptable for all-ages participation.