This past Friday was the fourth annual Teen Science Night at the California Academy of Sciences, the nation's largest teen-organized science night at a museum. Over 1,600 teens from across the San Francisco Bay Area gathered at the Academy for an evening of science exploration and fun.
I had a blast, as always, helping out at the event. As one of the adult chaperones, my job is to be mostly invisible and let the teens really own and run the event. Besides the small team of chaperones and adult facilitators, and museum security and guest experience staff, the entire event is managed by a crew of a couple hundred teen organizers from the Academy and a dozen other partner organizations. Seeing teens step up into leadership and really own the event is one of the best parts of Teen Science Night.
I spent most of my time hanging out in the aquarium and the piazza, where I got front row seats to the always entertaining dance circle that inevitably forms toward the end of the night.
The event closes with a raffle of cool prizes for participants, and a thank you to all the great organizations that helped pull off the event. Seeing 1,000+ youth together in the piazza cheering for each other is the best thing ever.
