Elementary Education Department Hosts Impossible Science Festival
On Tuesday, February 25th, the Elementary Education Department (EED) hosted the Impossible Science Festival in the USU Northridge Center. Impossible Science is a mind-blowing science center experience featuring STEAM experiments based on Invisibility, Levitation, Animation, Mind Reading, and more. Impossible Science focuses on providing events, resources, techniques, lesson plans, camos, and festivals to underserved communities across California making their revolutionary approach to education accessible to as many students as possible. This is the first time Impossible Science has partnered with a university. The Elementary Education Department staffed the over 25 experiments with more than 80 of their Credential Program students in order for them to gain hands-on teaching experiences in a real-world setting.
The day served over 1,200 elementary students from over 20 schools with an additional 125 students from a local high school in partnership with the College of Education’s Recruitment Officer. Teachers and students alike appreciated this community partnering. A teacher from Ararat Charter School said, “We appreciated all of your efforts to coordinate the array of wonderful science experiments….and it was free! Our students loved it!” And a fifth-grader from Park View Elementary told Dr. Greg Knotts, the Chair of EED, that he was “going to come to CSUN to study math!” EED also offered additional robotics workshops hosted by Dr. Cat Maiorca. Dr. William Watkins, Vice President for Student Affairs, generously co-sponsored the Festival with Elementary Education and said he was “overjoyed with the success of this important opportunity to influence students to embrace science and math. What a wonderful partnership in support of our youth.” We hope to have the opportunity to have Impossible Science return to CSUN!