Outreach Opportunity Alerts

Outreach Opportunity Alerts connect members of the Caltech community with educational outreach opportunities in the Pasadena community and beyond for which they can volunteer. They are published monthly.

To join the newsletter mailing list for Outreach Opportunity Alerts, members of the Caltech community can sign up here: https://mailchi.mp/caltech/caltech-outreach-opportunity-alert-signup or email Kitty Cahalan, kcahalan@caltech.edu. Please give Kitty your name, email address, Caltech affiliation (undergraduate, graduate student, postdoc, faculty or staff) and department, option or research group.

May 2025
Admissions season is over, and after days of atypical wet for this time of year, the sun is breaking through, promising some radical temperature fluctuations in the next few days, which may have us hoping to see May Gray back for a little longer. We in CTLO are wrapping up our school year programs and looking forward to summer research for high school students, summer camps on campus, and lots of tours. As the academic year wraps up, many schools in the community are seeking judges and panelists for contests and presentations. See below for some of the current needs being requested by our community partners, as well as ways you can help CTLO fulfill its own programming!

Back by Popular Demand: Design a Science Event Demonstration Workshop!
Our January workshop was well-attended, but not everyone could make it, so we have had a request to schedule another! If you want to attend public STEM events but aren't sure if you know how to present science, engineering or math in a way that young people will understand and have fun with, this workshop is for you!

CTLO and the STEM Ed and Outreach Club will present a Science Night Demo Workshop on Thursday, June 5, 2025 from 3-5 pm in the CTLO, Student Services Building (414 S. Holliston Ave) Suite 360.
Workshop will include:

How to distill complicated ideas to make them accessible to a general audience
Examples of effective demos
Time to workshop, build and present a demo to the group. CTLO will provide materials, or feel free to bring your own.

Be a Judge at Sierra Madre Middle School's Annual Cardboard Boat Race!
Sierra Madre Middle School is holding its annual cardboard boat building race on Friday, May 23 at the Sierra Madre YMCA pool - yes, the boat must hold students and make it across the pool! The teacher is requesting Caltechers to be judges for the contest. If you are interested, please contact Ravi Dev at RaviDev@pusd.us.

The address of the Y is 611 E Sierra Madre Blvd, Sierra Madre, CA 91024.

Panelists for Octavia Butler Middle School Presentations Needed
Octavia E. Butler Magnet students are preparing portfolio websites to demonstrate their learning and growth during their time with us. We are seeking panelists who would be willing to attend presentations and provide brief feedback.

Our presentations will be scheduled during the weeks of May 12th and May 19th. Can you please let us know if you are interested and available at all during those two weeks? If so, please let us know your availability by completing this Google Form.

Additionally, if you know of someone who you think might be interested in seeing what our students have been learning and providing them with some encouragement, please feel free to forward them this invitation.

Summer Research Connection Needs Mentors
CTLO is in need of a few more people to be mentors in CTLO's Summer Research Connection (SRC)! SRC runs from June 23-August 1. Students from Pasadena Unified School District schools work in research groups and labs across campus for roughly 20 hours per week. The more mentors we have, the more students we can accept! If you are interested in being a mentor during summer 2025, contact Mitch Aiken at aiken@caltech.edu.

Present a Lesson on Electricity and Magnetism at Pasadena Waldorf

The 6th grade class at Pasadena Waldorf School is requesting a talk/demo on electricity and magnetism. The school facility was lost in the Eaton Fire and the school is temporarily meeting

at another facility in Pasadena and is eager for classroom visits to boost the student and teacher morale.

Please contact Mitch Aiken at aiken@caltech.edu if you'd like to know more about this opportunity.

CTLO Outreach Programs
We are always seeking volunteers for our ongoing programs!

Science Nights
Science Nights are over for the year, but we have some summer events coming up, including FarWest Fest on June 21! Our signup link doesn't change - bookmark it and check back in over the summer for new events! https://www.volunteersignup.org/8M7FR

Visiting Scientists
A science teaching program at Madison Elementary. Caltechers teach 3rd-5th graders for 2-3 hours two times per month with a team of other Caltech students. Contact Kitty Cahalan at kcahalan@caltech.edu if you're interested in joining or learning more for 2025-26!

STEM Education and Outreach Club
Contact club president Alexis Cho at adcho@caltech.edu or sign up here: https://tinyurl.com/OutreachClub

Lab Tours
If you are ever willing to host a short (15-20 minute) tour of your lab for a small (10-15) group of middle or high schoolers visiting campus, please contact Kitty Cahalan at kcahalan@caltech.edu.

If you're interested in outreach, or want to know more, fill out this form (https://tinyurl.com/CTLOOutreachForm), and we will contact you to talk about the programs we have, or discuss your ideas.

Tutor Veterans at PCC
PCC is seeking volunteers who would like to tutor Veterans for mostly STEM topics. Most tutors work one-on-one with a student, with occasional tutor groups of two students. Tutors generally meet with their students once a week for an hour or two, depending on the student's needs and the tutor's availability, usually on Caltech's campus.

If interested, please contact Joseph Amador, VRC Success Coach, at jamador2@pasadena.edu

We Don't Just Do STEM Outreach!
We know that Caltech has people doing their studies and research in areas that are not considered STEM fields, and we'd love to have those of you this applies to do outreach, too! We also know all our students, staff and faculty have many other talents - are you an artist, photographer, writer, actor, dancer, athlete, musician? Do you have a hobby you'd like to share with people in our community? We can do outreach with that, too!

Please let Kitty Cahalan (kcahalan@caltech.edu) know if you're interested!

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Caltech Educational Outreach Office's programs run on volunteers! If you would like to join any of our programs, or if you have a program of your own that you'd like to bring to K-12 students, contact Kitty Cahalan, Assistant Director of Educational Outreach, at 626-395-2468 or kcahalan@caltech.edu.