The Bay Area Science Festival makes learning fun.
It’s no surprise that in the Bay Area, a global epicenter of innovation, where for more than 150 years people have come to reinvent themselves, some great minds got together to reinvent the science fair.
The fourth annual Bay Area Science Festival, a 10-day transbay shindig Oct. 23-Nov. 1, includes events at AT&T Park, the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Stanford and UC Berkeley, multiple science museums, food trucks in SoMa, and four East Bay farmers’ markets, where UC Berkeley scientists will bring hands-on food-related science experiments and discuss composting, GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and sustainability.
With more than 50 events from Santa Rosa to San Jose, the festival drew 68,000 in 2013 and is expected to hit 75,000 this year. And most of the events are free and family friendly.
The concept behind this far-reaching geek-fest is to raise awareness of science in our area and “celebrate science the way we celebrate music and art,” says festival director Kishore Hari of the Science & Health Education Partnership at UC San Francisco, which produces the festival along with a core group of science institutions.
Such festivals have been successful in Europe and Asia for a couple of decades, he says, but there were only four or five in the United States when UCSF “took up the shield” in 2008 to organize one in San Francisco; now there are 40 nationwide.
“We live in one of the most science-rich communities in the country,” says Hari, “with major universities, research labs, science museums, and lots of science and technology industries. Because the Bay Area is so rich with science culture, we wanted to reflect that and show how science merges with other fields — science and music, science and art, science and comedy, science and food. So it really becomes a festival that celebrates the culture of science, not a place where you’re going to hear a lecture.”
However, storytelling is a big component this year — personal tales of scientists’ successes … and failures.
Some highlights:
The NPR program “Snap Judgment” will film and record for broadcast “Breakthrough,” with scientists recounting moments of discovery, Oct. 26 at the Nourse Theater.
The Story Collider and In-
quiring Minds podcast team up to produce a live broadcast of four personal science stories plus neuroscientist and operatic soprano Indre Viskontas’ interview with Discovery Channel’s “MythBusters” host Adam Savage, Oct. 28 at the Rickshaw Stop.
The Halloween-themed “Creatures of the Night Life” at the California Academy of Sciences, Oct. 30 (ages 21+), will highlight the science behind vampires and zombies, and Associate Curator and Follett Chair of Ichthyology Luiz A. Rocha will recount his un-
“It becomes a festival that celebrates the culture of science, not a place where (you’ll) hear a lecture.”
Kishore Hari, festival director
derwater expedition to a Philippines coral reef as he does a live dive in the academy’s tank representing the reef.
The biggest festival draw for families is Discovery Day, Nov. 1 at AT&T Park, with 200 inter- active exhibits and activities where kids will meet scientists and engineers and learn about health and medicine, technology, biotechnology, climate science, and more.
New at the stadium this year: Oracle Marine Science Plaza, where kids can pilot an underwater ROV (remotely operated vehicle); Life Science Alley, where they can extract their DNA and explore their genes; and Robot Zoo in Willie Mays Plaza.
“We basically turn the ballpark into an outdoor science museum,” says Hari.
A North Bay Discovery Day takes place Nov. 1 at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa.
Another mega-event is the Nerd Nite Block Party in San Francisco, Oct. 24, covering a three-block radius South of Market for music, gaming, and more. At Slim’s, rock headliners the Phenomenauts (one of their songs is “I’m With Neil,” an ode to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson) and electronic rock group crashfaster share the bill with Physics Circus, featuring Zeke Cossover of the Exploratorium doing physics demonstrations.
The block party also has Nerd Speed Dating among the food trucks at SOMA StrEat Food Park (ages 21+); S.F. Game Night at the Folsom Street Foundry (ages 21+), offering loads of video games as well as well as talks on the science of gaming; plus How It’s Made “Field Trips” departing from the Foundry for behind-the-scenes tours of a blacksmith’s forge, a coffee roaster, a furniture maker’s shop, and more.
Hari will start planning next year’s event as soon as the dust clears from this one, as the festival continues to grow and innovate.
“We live in such an incredible place,” he says. “You can’t go a few miles without hitting an amazing group of people leading global research. So it’s easy to transform the festival every year.”