STEMworks

Community Resources for Science

Impact

Community Resources for Science (CRS) offers engaging hands-on science opportunities to roughly 1,100 elementary school educators and 25,000 students at more than 100 urban schools in San Francisco’s East Bay. Vast majorities of participating teachers say CRS has helped them teach more science, teach it better, and get their students excited about science. With extra support, CRS could reach thousands more students in the next three years.

  • Target Audience
    • Teachers/Educational Leaders
  • Program Type
    • Curriculum/Instructional Materials
    • Teacher Development/Training
    • Hands-on/Project-Based
  • Location
    • California
  • Grade Level
    • K
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

Contact

Teresa Barnett
Executive Director

Email ProgramLaunch Website

Accomplished Program has been evaluated and meets the Design Principles for quality.

  • Need Accomplished
  • Evaluation Developing
  • Sustainability Accomplished
  • Replication & Scalability Developing
  • Partnerships Accomplished
  • Capacity Accomplished
  • Challenging & Relevant Content Accomplished
  • STEM Practices Accomplished
  • Inspiration Accomplished
  • Under-Represented Groups Accomplished

See full results

CRS trains employees to work well with teachers, manage an elementary school classroom, and make a big impact with students in just a one-hour presentation…. They’re effective team-builders, either with employees who already work together or across departments. CRS does a good job of taking pictures, getting quotes from happy teachers and volunteers, providing reports that make it easy to keep up a dynamic internal communications campaign throughout the year.”

Trina Ostrander

Manager, Public Policy & Communications, Bayer HealthCare

Design Principles

The programs in this database clear a high bar. STEMworks reviewed each program against the Design Principles for Effective STEM Philanthropy. Programs must be Accomplished (accomplished) across all Design Principles, or be Developing (developing) in a maximum of three areas.

Overarching Principles

  • Need Accomplished

    Identify and target a compelling and well-defined need.

  • Evaluation Developing

    Use rigorous evaluation to continuously measure and inform progress towards the compelling need identified.

  • Sustainability Accomplished

    Ensure work is sustainable.

  • Replication & Scalability Developing

    Demonstrate replicability and scalability.

  • Partnerships Accomplished

    Create high impact partnerships.

  • Capacity Accomplished

    Ensure organizational capacity to achieve goals.

STEM Principles

  • Challenging & Relevant Content Accomplished

    Offer challenging and relevant STEM content for the target audience.

  • STEM Practices Accomplished

    Incorporate and encourage STEM practices.

  • Inspiration Accomplished

    Inspire interest and engagement in STEM.

  • Under-Represented Groups Accomplished

    Identify and address the needs of under-represented groups.

Program Overview

CRS connects and engages educators, students, and scientists in a vibrant and innovative web of science learning resources. Our goal is simple: help K-5 teachers give students more opportunities to “do science” – to ask questions, test ideas, get their hands on real science activities. Since 1997, CRS has developed an innovative set of information, support, and connection resources that increase the amount of science taught in K-5 classrooms. CRS provides timely information, personalized planning support, and in-class, scientist-led presentations, working directly with classroom teachers to meet their unique needs and increase their skill, confidence, and access to information and useful resources. We help teachers plan activities to meet a particular science standard, find field trips to a museum or outdoor education center, or connect them with the resources they need. Coupled with the information and on-call support, our scientist-volunteer-in-the-classroom program (BASIS) brings over 400 diverse, enthusiastic scientist teams into classrooms to do science and to talk about science as an exciting career. Teachers value the in-class professional development they receive from the scientists and say they see particular students engaged and succeeding at levels not observed with traditional instruction practices.

Funders and Partners

University of California, Berkeley, Department of Chemistry; Science@Cal; CalTeach; Environmental Leadership Pathways, UC Berkeley, College of Natural Resources; Gateways STEM Network; Bayer; Clorox; Oakland Unified School District; Berkeley Unified School District; Berkeley Public Education Foundation