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 see 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 p.m. to 9 p.m., teens could tour the museum for free, attend special programs - such as the teacher dunking in the tank - and connect with organizations and resources that support teens in the Bay Area.
Many of the teens attending 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," generally located 100 to 500 feet below the ocean's surface.
Ty Hosein, another recent graduate from San Jose, 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," said Hosein, 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 did not 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," noted Jasmine Strain as they waited in line to visit the rainforest. "I'm also a big science nerd. I love space, I love earthquakes, especially since I live in San Francisco."
As the teens explored the various offerings at the museum, from the new "Bugs" exhibit to "The Swamp," home of the famous albino alligator Claude, Bay Area organizations such as the San Francisco Public Library, TeenTechSF Global and Literacy for Environmental Justice spoke to the 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 science career 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 belong to a minority immigrant family that may not be able to afford higher education like me, Teen Science Night connects you with organizations that are very excited to support students and help them get involved in science," noted 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 out there 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," noted Voong, who is headed to Brown University this fall to continue research and, ultimately, to 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 for getting involved in STEM that don't require having a Ph.D. 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 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.
"Mentoring in the library archives taught me ?about? these great discoveries and contributions of people of color in science, but we don't recognize the origin of their discoveries," stressed Basas, who described Luis Felipe Baptista during his internship.
Baptista immigrated to San Francisco from Hong Kong right after high school and began research at Cal Academy. He eventually became an international expert in animal behavior and bird learning.
"I'm not an immigrant, but I'm first generation," Basas pointed out. "If he - Baptista - could take that step right 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 Cal Academy youth volunteer 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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