Children and their families packed the Logan Heights Public Library in a celebration of science, curiosity, and future opportunities in the community.

The 52 Weeks of Science celebrated its first anniversary this Wednesday, October 19, with a community science fair featuring over 20 science and technology organizations ranging from local robotics labs to medical research centers.

“Today is the culmination of one year of science presentations that are tied to STEM from all over San Diego county we are here to celebrate all the work we have done this year and to help kick off next year,” said Daniel Aguirre, Community Engagement Manager for 52 Weeks of Science.

Over the span of the last year, The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center’s 52 Weeks of Science program has been bringing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programming to the children and families of Barrio Logan and Logan Heights. Programming and events have ranged from robotics courses for first graders and science camps for girls all the way through adult oriented events such as lectures and social events at bars with scientists and engineers.

“The goal was to create an interest an interest in science learning and to get people’s attention towards STEM and STEM careers and to raise awareness,” Aguirre continued. There are a lot of partners that are coming on board to make this a really exciting projects.”

One of the partners that has been involved throughout the past year is the Salk Institute, a local non-profit research organization.

“We have been involved with this program since it began. We have run DNA extraction activities and have held lectures in Spanish as part of the program,” said Neena Ranchod-Shaw, Manager of Education Outreach at the Salk Institute. “Today we are showing the kids how the Salk Institute uses flies to do scientific research. We have four microscopes and underneath each one we have five types of mutated flies so the students have to work out which flies are the mutant flies.”

Despite the warm reception from the community to the program, the people behind 52 Weeks of Science are looking to improve and expand content for the next program cycle.

“The next phase of this program will be a little bit more fine tuned. We will try to have something for every age group. We want more career and college pathway focused presentations to give this community a lens from current college students and their families into what obstacles they may encounter.”

Aguirre closed by sharing the significance of exposing people in underserved communities to STEM related topics.

“Barrio Logan is a Hispanic community and we are not represented in STEM fields and that is a tragedy because math and engineering are in our blood, just look back to the Aztecs and the Mayans; it is something that we have lost touch with,” Aguirre shared. “We need to be in these fields to have our points of view represented.”