Impact Report

2023

A message from CEO & Founder, Tzipor Ulman

Dear Friends –

It’s been a very exciting year at Science is Elementary, and we couldn’t have done it without you. Our impact has grown tremendously thanks to over a thousand volunteers, long-time supporters, and those who just started supporting us this year. Our fabulous staff has worked tirelessly to ensure we make science as accessible as possible to as many children as possible, with a focus on communities underrepresented in science and engineering.

This year we brought inspiring, innovative, high-quality science experiences to more than 53,000 children. You read that right. We quintupled our reach compared to last year and have grown more than tenfold in just two years.

Our Science is for Me program (renamed from SiE Books to better reflect its goals and align with our values) reached children in three states and Europe! Jasmine and José, the protagonists of our stories, brought hands-on science and scientific reasoning to homes, school classrooms, and afterschool programs in California (North Sacramento to the Central Valley and West to Salinas), Michigan, North Carolina, and even as far as Cardiff, Wales.

We have big goals, and we need your help.

Help us reach new partners by telling your friends and family, near and far, about Science is Elementary. Tell your school principal and PTA about us. Let your employer know we can engage groups in team-building activities while assembling our science kits.

Please also consider making a donation so that we can continue to bring science experiences to the children who need them most.

With gratitude,

Tzipor

Who we are

We're Science is Elementary (SiE)

Founded in 2008 by Tzipor Ulman, a Stanford chemistry Ph.D. and a lifelong science education volunteer, SiE began with just two pilot lessons. With a handful of enthusiastic scientists and engineers, who shared the vision and volunteered their time, SiE started bringing exciting hands-on experiments to local underserved elementary school classrooms.

Since then, we’ve impacted more than 80,000 students, trained over 1,000 scientists and engineers as mentors to low-income youth, and helped hundreds of teachers improve their science teaching.

Our Mission

Science is Elementary provides inspiring, innovative, high-quality science experiences to the preschool and elementary school children who need them most.

Our Values

Science is Awesome: Science is both cool and awe-inspiring. We foster learning through inquiry – students ask questions, make observations, and put their ideas to the test.
Science is for Everyone: Students’ identities and experiences are honored and integrated into our instruction. We promote equity and inclusion by using local, historical, and cultural contexts, as well as what each individual child brings to school. We firmly believe that everyone can achieve high standards for learning science.
Science is Everywhere: Children are curious. Our program honors and nurtures this curiosity, helping students to explore their observations and questions about how the world works. Our experiments in physical sciences and engineering enable students to make interdisciplinary connections that weave together concepts and skills across content areas.

Our Approach

Our holistic approach includes families, educators, and volunteers to enhance science education through hands-on stories and experiments.

Science is for Me Series – Jasmine and José explore the world and solve problems using science. Easy-to-follow illustrations mean 4-7-year-olds can work independently.
Learning Lab – Deploying books in elementary school classrooms for continuous improvement.
Professional Development – Customized offerings for schools where teachers learn about integrating science and literacy, teaching reasoning skills, finding engaging phenomena, and more.

Our Impact

54,094

Books distributed this year

This major increase allowed us to distribute our “Science is for Me” series to 84,612 elementary school students since our inception.

1,101

Children impacted by direct teaching this year

Since our establishment, we have provided hands-on and supportive teaching to 12,000 children with the assistance of teachers and volunteers.

5 Books created this year

Our curriculum now totals 23 “Science is for Me” books, which are aligned with grade-specific science standards.

200 Teachers receiving professional development this year

We have inspired more than 700 teachers through professional development training since our inception.

706 Volunteers this year

Since our inception, we have had more than 2,100 volunteers in the classroom and assembling books.

1,337

Volunteer hours for book assembly this year

Thanks to the dedication of employees from top corporations and other volunteers, we have been able to distribute thousands of science-based books for children.

11 Corporations engaged

Corporate partners provide resources and volunteers to assist in the assembly of books.

50 Distribution program partners this year

We engage the community by working with many nonprofits and other organizations to get our books into the hands of kids who need them the most.

What others are saying

"Science is Elementary is meeting a massive gap in elementary science learning. Their work with teachers and students needs to be scaled to as many schools and districts as possible."
Eileen YangCorporate & Employee Giving Professional
“The design of the SiE professional development program empowers teachers to feel confident in their ability and knowledge to engage students in authentic science and engineering experiences.”
Janet CarlsonFaculty Director, Center to Support Excellence in Teaching, Stanford Graduate School of Education
“As an advocate of STEM education, I appreciated the opportunity to bring well-constructed science curricula to the classroom. Science is Elementary does the hard work of putting the lessons together and all my staff and I had to do was prepare for the lesson and show up with knowledge and enthusiasm. Imparting science concepts and skills to children when they are young is imperative to instilling a passion for science. Science jobs are among the most lucrative and doing a program in underserved communities may allow some of the kids to pursue careers in science."
Sandra SachsLaboratory Manager Oakland PD Crime Lab & SiE Volunteer
“We are extremely fortunate to have the Science is Elementary program at our site! Students LOVE the hands-on experiments, and the thinking and writing skills built into each lesson help build curiosity and connect to other areas of learning. Thank you again for providing such a wonderful program to our school!”
Barbara CheungTeacher, Montague Elementary School
“This was by far one of the best enrichment programs I’ve taken my daughter to in a long time. My daughter learned a great deal about basic physics concepts in an engaging, fun, and creative way. Even I, as a parent who took Physics in high school and college, found myself relearning basic physics concepts in a much more meaningful way than I had ever been taught before.”
Angela Evans Parent
“My bilingual kindergartners are enjoying learning the basic concepts of motion, forces, and gravity in the classroom. The Science is Elementary Program is bringing hands-on learning with the enjoyment of playing. The well-structured program teaches students to collect data from activities, predict results, make observations and compare results.”
Francisco Luis-IlagunoTeacher, Acorn Woodland Elementary