The San Diego Science Festival (SDSF) is a collaboration of more than 125 leading science organizations including the San Diego Science Alliance, CONNECT, BIOCOM, N.D.I.A., and other key local organizations and media partners - and is organized by community members and the University of California, San Diego.

The mission of the Festival is to draw on the strengths of San Diego’s corporate and organizational diversity across STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) industries in order to advance the local and National economy by building a pipeline of future scientists.

Many of San Diego’s school districts have also partnered with the Festival, such as San Diego Unified School District, Poway Unified School District, Oceanside School District, San Dieguito Union High School District, Grossmont Union High School District, and Sweetwater Union High School District, to name a few.

Comprised of year-round K-12 educational programming and a condensed, 8-day “Festival Week” of science related activities in the spring, we will soon announce dates and details for SDSF 2010. We’re looking forward to another outpouring of community involvement and support in 2010.

A National Model - The Science Festival Alliance (SFA)
The inaugural 2009 Festival began on February 28th and cascaded through San Diego with hundreds of school activities and public events throughout the month of March. Culminating with Expo Day, 50,000 people were drawn to Balboa Park on April 4, making SDSF Expo Day the largest single day celebration of science in the nation. SDSF is now viewed as a national model for Science Festivals. 

Because of this achievement, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has just awarded a $3 million Informal Science Education grant to extend and support the growth of Science Festivals nationwide to UC San Diego in collaboration with The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Museum, The Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, and the University of California, San Francisco (strategically, two major educational entities in the East, two in the West).

Together, we are initiating the  Science Festival Alliance (SFA) to seed the startup of Science Festivals in hundreds of cities and towns across America. By introducing these festivals and establishing affiliated programs for science educational enrichment year-round, we are launching a new “Decade of Science” in the United States.