News and Events

Summer 2026: First Half Highlights

It's hard to believe, but we've concluded the first half of our summer 2026 camp season! In the first half of the season, Science Discovery delivered 54 summer camps and high school classes and welcomed a total of 870 K-12 students to the CU Boulder and CU Anschutz campuses. We've gathered a few of our favorite moments into a highlight reel for you to enjoy. If you missed out on joining the first half of summer, there's still time to make summer camp memories in the coming weeks!

Upcoming Events

End of Summer Teacher Giveaway

CU Science Discovery is excited to announce an end of summer giveaway of some of our surplus and retired scientific and engineering educational tools and equipment! Local educators are invited to visit the CU Science Discovery offices to select some FREE hidden treasures for use in the classroom. This event is free and open to K-12 formal and informal educators who work directly with students (individual hobbyists, please refrain). All items will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

WHEN: 
August 4 from 8am–12pm and August 5 from 10 am–2 pm

WHERE:
CU Science Discovery (within the Rose Litman Research Lab)
1560 30th Street, Boulder, CO 80309
First Floor, Owl Room

Note: Visitors will be required to pay for parking in Lot 560.

Virtual Teen Science Café

Most of us know what STEM-based high school classes look like. Many of us probably have a good idea as to what professional STEM research looks like. But what does STEM in that crucial, transitional college phase look like? Join us for an hour of insights in this panel-style career discussion featuring an undergraduate student, a PhD student, and a recent graduate in STEM!

This STEM Career Panel will feature:

  • Matt Desaulniers, PhD student in Robotics 
  • Tori Field, Undergraduate student in Applied Math and Aerospace Engineering 
  • Hannah Whitlock, Clinical research assistant

Don't miss a chance to hear a first-hand account of how integral this phase of your STEM education journey can be!

Highlights and Happenings

CBS Weather School Visits Club Innovation
June 10, 2026
On Wednesday, campers in the grant-funded "Club Innovation Ecology & Escape Rooms Summer Camp" funded through the CO-AAP (Colorado Academic Accelerator Program) grant had a special visit from CBS Weather School with meteorologist Callie Zanandrie to learn all about the wild weather of Colorado. This camp included 64 students from 20 schools throughout the Adams-12 district and is supported by CU Boulder and Northglenn High School students. During the weather visit, students learned about the ingredients of weather such as temperature, water, and air pressure, explored weather balloons, and discussed how the mountains impact our forecast here in Colorado. Campers had a chance to "catch" a small tornado with their hands, create a cloud in a bottle, and beat the summer heat by playing with some artificial snow. Students were even featured on the 4 pm CBS news broadcast- you can check out the video of their visit using the link above. 
BioBlitz 2026
April 29, 2026

The 3rd annual BioBlitz at Crest View Elementary brought together 81 4th graders and 29 volunteers to explore the biodiversity surrounding the school. Students discovered and identified 92 different organisms! THANK YOU to the wonderful teachers and administration at Crest View who support integrating outdoor education and community collaborations, and to the volunteers from CU Science Discovery, Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research - NWT LTER site, and the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies departments at University of Colorado Boulder, The Nature Conservancy, City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks, and Classrooms for Climate Action, who took time and energy out of their days to get kids fired up about the natural world!

CU Boulder's Take Your Kids to Work Day
April 23, 2026

Thanks to everyone who joined us at CU Boulder's Take Your Kids to Work Day event and created a colorful flower for our Versatile Garden. Even Chip got in on the action! Big thanks to MathHappens Foundation for the colorful inspiration!

Club Innovation: Motts Million Dollar Challenge
April 23, 2026

Exciting news just in from Club Innovation students at Science Discovery's afterschool program at STEM Launch K-8 in Thornton! In February, Club students were invited to submit their best ideas to the Mott Million Dollar Challenge competition. As part of the challenge, students were encouraged to think about game-changing ideas – maybe an awesome concept to solve a problem at their school or a solution to community-wide problem. Program manager Caitlin is excited to share that Leo, one of her 4th grade Club students, has won a first-round prize of $250 for his submission (click the link above to view his submission video) and will be moved to the second round of the competition! Kudos to Caitlin and her team for working tirelessly for such an amazing program and showing up weekly to provide support and thoughtful mentorship to Leo and many others!

Build-a-Bug with Craft Tech Lab
April 14, 2026

CU Boulder’s Craft Tech Lab and Club Innovation students joined forces in the name of research! Club Innovation 5th graders had the opportunity to build their own robotic insects and give their input about the kits. Students were able to provide valuable feedback about what worked and didn't work before the lab updated their Build-a-Bug kits for a broader audience. This cross-collaboration was a great opportunity for elementary-aged students to see science happening in real time and provide valuable testing grounds for CU faculty and labs to try out their content—it’s a win, WIN!

A Week at Dawson School
March 13, 2026

The School and Teacher Programs team were all hands-on deck for a week at Dawson School in Lafayette where they delivered two custom programs—Invent It!, a micro:bit program for middle school students and Case 47: Beyond the Yellow Tape, an exploratory case study for high school students. Scott Sieke and Steven Denham put an immense amount of work into planning the week’s activities for approximately 22 students and based on the feedback received, their efforts paid off in a BIG way! Here are a few of our favorite highlights shared by the Dawson team:

  • "Everything was fantastic! [Scott] was the definition of professional; he was incredibly organized, arriving with every single material needed for every activity, and he was able to pivot gracefully whenever things didn't go exactly as planned." "[Scott] was the pinnacle of professionalism."
  • "[Case 47] may be over, but the curiosity, collaboration, and critical thinking sparked beyond the yellow tape will continue long after the bus ride home."
  • "One of the most rewarding surprises of the week was hearing a student declare their plan to attend CU Boulder! This shift in perspective is a testament to the power of the campus visit and the meaningful interactions with current CU students."
Family Night at STEM Launch K-8
March 12, 2026

Caitlin Anderson and her team of 17 volunteers hosted another incredibly successful Family Night at STEM Launch for approximately 200 attendees! The theme of the event was Powering Our Future Together and included activities such as sail cars, circuits, potato batteries and more. As a valuable tie-in, Caitlin’s Club Innovation students were able to showcase some of the board games that they had created in their afterschool program. Hats off to Caitlin for planning an engaging event that was thoroughly enjoyed by all!

STEAMfest 2026
February 28, 2026

The Science Discovery team got a chance to celebrate all things STEAM with over 950 kids, families and community members at our annual Family STEAMfest event! Participants spent time creating diatoms, using Play-Doh to understand Braille, visualizing music through math, observing the sun through telescopes, exploring fluid dynamics, building Binary code keychains, and more. This event would not be possible without collaboration and support from a number of individuals and organizations. Thank you to everyone who helped make this event so fantastic, including but not limited to:

  • CU Boulder's Museum of Natural History
  • CU Boulder's Parking and Transportation
  • Fiske Planetarium
  • Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building
  • MathHappens Foundation
  • National Solar Observatory
  • Riddle Family Foundation
  • Stingers Café
  • 100+ faculty and student presenters and volunteers who led various activity stations

Click the link above to see some of our favorite moments from the day. 

Food, Friends and Freaky Fish
January 22, 2026

The Science Discovery Teen Café has returned! The first event of the year was held in Aurora on January 22 at the Moorhead Rec Center with 11 high school students in attendance. Program youth leaders invited CU Anschutz PhD student Colette Dolby to share her research that involved using zebrafish to model genetic diseases in humans. Attendees were invited to explore the equipment required for zebrafish husbandry and get an up-close look at live fish in an attempt to identify mutants. Teen Science Cafés are free events held monthly throughout the school year in Aurora and Thornton. Visit the Science Discovery Teen Café webpage for more information about upcoming events.

Lights on Afterschool at STEM Launch
October 23, 2025

On Thursday, Club Innovation at STEM Launch K-8 School joined the nationwide celebration of Lights On Afterschool, showcasing the positive impact afterschool programs have on students and families! This grant-funded afterschool program serves 60 elementary students and is supported by a team of 18 student mentors from CU Boulder and Northglenn High School. To celebrate the theme of “keeping the lights on,” students lit up the room — and their imaginations — with a variety of glowing activities. They received their own glow sticks, worked together in a fun gift-wrapping teamwork challenge (while literally connected to one another), and even powered LED lights using potatoes as batteries! 🥔✨ It was a bright reminder of how creativity, collaboration, and curiosity shine in afterschool programs every day.

Science Communication and Outreach Seminar

Each year, CU Science Discovery Broader Impacts Manager, Alex Rose, runs an interactive seminar called Science Communication and Outreach. The course brings together graduate students, post-docs, faculty, and researchers from across science and engineering fields at CU Boulder. The goal is for participants to learn to explain their research in clear, engaging ways—whether that’s through conversation, writing, or interactive demos, they work to be able to spark curiosity and connection in audiences of all ages. Participants create a versatile “elevator pitch” and share their work at a unique “reverse science fair” where high schoolers at Northglenn High School judge the scientists on their research presentations. Not only does this course build confidence and professional development, but it also gives students tools they can use in outreach, teaching, and in professional communication contexts. The course is supported by funding through the Niwot Ridge LTER project and the Broader Impacts activities of Dr. Wyatt Shields’s NSF CAREER award.

CO-AAP Grant, Year Two
September 2025

CU Science Discovery is excited to kick off the second year of our CO-AAP (Colorado Academic Accelerator Program) grant in partnership with Adams-12 Five Star Schools. This afterschool math tutoring program brings together 9 CU student mentors (including undergraduate, graduate, and post-baccalaureate students) and 8 Northglenn High School students to support 64+ elementary learners in building positive STEM identities, strengthening math skills, and connecting with science happening at CU Boulder. Our near-peer model fosters mentorship between CU students and high school tutors, sharing college and career pathways that highlight all CU has to offer to future Buffs. This fall, our team hosted a Family Math Literacy Night that welcomed over 140 participants for hands-on activities and bilingual take-home resources to support math education in the school community.