By Rya Jetha and Alexandra Garcia. Bay City News.
“We’re here because our science teacher is diving in one of the tanks!” said Layla Maura, 16, as she and her friends waited outside the California Academy of Sciences on Friday.
Maura and her friends attend George Washington High School and received an email from their teacher about the event.
"We thought, 'Why not watch him tonight, swimming?'" Maura said.
Then, the doors of Cal Academy opened and hundreds of teens filed in to take over the Teen Science Night venue.
The event is planned once a year for teens at Cal Academy in Golden Gate Park. On Friday from 6:30 to 9 p.m., teens could visit the museum for free, attend special programs — like the teacher diving into the tank — and connect with organizations and resources that support teens in the Bay Area.
Many of the teens who attended Friday's event had not visited Cal Academy since they were children or before the pandemic.
“I used to come here a lot, so this is very nostalgic for me. It’s nice to see the aquarium and the butterflies,” said Jade Huang, a recent Cupertino High School graduate. The Steinhart Aquarium at Cal Academy is home to more than 900 species of animals and takes visitors into the ocean’s “twilight zone,” typically located between 100 and 500 feet below the ocean’s surface.
Ty Hosein, another recent San Jose graduate, said he attended Teen Science Night because of his interest in biodiversity.
“It’s a great place to see biodiversity, from the aquarium to the biosphere,” Hosein said, referring to the four-story-high dome that encloses a vertical rainforest of plants, beetles, birds, butterflies and even an Amazonian tree boa.
Other teenagers attending the event were delighted that they didn't have to pay to get in.
“I’m here because it’s free and I don’t have any money. Plus, I like it here,” Jasmine Strain said as they waited in line to visit the rainforest. “I’m also a huge science nerd. I love space, I love earthquakes, especially since I live in San Francisco.”
As teens explored the museum’s diverse offerings, from the new “Bugs” exhibit to “The Swamp,” home of the famous albino alligator Claude, Bay Area organizations like the San Francisco Public Library, TeenTechSF Global and Literacy for Environmental Justice spoke to students about their missions and resources.
Connecting Bay Area teens with resources was especially important to the event’s teen planners, many of whom are students of color interested in STEM careers.
Teen Science Night is planned by interns in the careers in science program at Cal Academy. Interns join the program as sophomores or juniors and work, teach, and research at the museum until they graduate from high school.
“If you’re from a minority immigrant family who may not be able to afford higher education like I was, Teen Science Night connects you with organizations that are really excited to support students and help them get involved in science,” said Viva Voong of SF’s Portola District, one of the student organizers of the event.
“I hope teens know that there are so many resources that want to support women and people of color,” said Voong, who interned at the museum for three years doing botany projects, working on teams with NASA scientists and presenting research at the American Geophysical Union Conference.
“This program has connected me with others who serve people of color and helped me realize that there is a lot of support for people like me to pursue their dreams,” said Voong, who is headed to Brown University this fall to continue research and ultimately become an oncologist.
Racqyl Basas of SF's Outer Sunset, another student organizer of Teen Science Night, isn't so sure what kind of STEM career she wants to pursue.
“There are so many other options to get involved in STEM that don’t require having a PhD or writing scientific papers,” Basas explained. “When you think about science, it shouldn’t just be a white lab coat. There are so many other opportunities, so we hope it’s something that teens will realize.”
Basas hopes to explore careers in geology and science communication at City College of San Francisco beginning this fall.
She credits her experience working in the library archives at Cal Academy for boosting her self-confidence and shaping her career aspirations.
“The library archives mentoring taught me about these great discoveries and contributions of people of color in science, but we don’t recognize the origin of their discoveries,” said Basas, who described Luis Felipe Baptista during his internship.
Baptista immigrated to San Francisco from Hong Kong right after finishing high school and began researching at Cal Academy. He eventually became an international expert on animal behavior and bird learning.
“I’m not an immigrant, but I am first generation,” Basas said. “If he – Baptista – could take that step straight out of high school, it’s definitely something I can do!”
While Voong and Basas were hard at work at Teen Science Night to make sure the event ran smoothly, teens gathered at the “Coral Reefs of the World” exhibit to learn about the Philippine coral reef and watch Jordan Lee, a former youth volunteer at Cal Academy and current marine biology teacher at George Washington High School, dive into the tank.
Maura and her friends cheered as she swam through one of the largest covered coral reefs in the world, surrounded by schools of fluorescent fish.
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