CSMP

The UC San Francisco Science Project is a part of the UCSF Science & Health Education Partnership (SEP). Initiated in 1987 by University of California at San Francisco professors Bruce Alberts and David Ramsey.

SEP offers a diverse programmatic menu: a variety of classroom-based partnership models bring UCSF volunteers into K-12 classrooms, summer courses and seminars provide pedagogically rich content learning experiences for teachers , school-site science teams build capacity for science teaching at elementary schools, and a high school internship program pairs students from backgrounds underrepresented in the sciences with mentors and immerses them in a university environment conducting scientific research . Additionally, teachers and UCSF volunteers receive lesson coaching and borrow materials from SEP’s lending library  – these materials provide enriched science and health learning experiences for nearly 30% of San Francisco Unified School District’s (SFUSD)  55,000 students. Finally, SEP’s online lesson resource, SEPLessons provides access to quality investigative science and health lessons designed by our partnership teams. SEPLessons attracts over 17,000 unique visitors a month from across the United States and world.

On a yearly basis, SEP works with 85-90% of the 120 public schools in San Francisco and over 300 teachers and their students. SEP’s programs are open to all SFUSD teachers and our programmatic activity is evenly distributed across SFUSD both geographically and with respect to student achievement as defined by the California Academic Performance Index (API). There is tremendous enthusiasm at UCSF for SEP, from the Chancellor to graduate students. Since 2004, the Chancellor and School of Medicine have provided about 40% of SEP’s annual budget. The number of SEP volunteers has been increasing steadily since 1999: in 2007-08, over 250 volunteers contributed more than 20 hours each in SFUSD classrooms. These volunteers include graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, researchers, and professional (medical, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, and physical therapy) students.