Impact

As part of the team's effort to expand scientific outreach, LEAP hosted ~90 students and teachers from SOAR High School for a Caltech campus tour. Our volunteers opened up lab spaces and set up science demonstrations for the students. The LEAP team has also since brought our science demonstrations to Longfellow Elementary Science Night and Suva Elementary School to further engage with the community.

LEAP partnered up with SOAR High School and Van Nuys Magnet School for our third donation cycle! Ms. Dana Hung faced a daunting challege of setting up a brand new bioengineering syllabus for her students at Van Nuys Magnet School, and Ms. Brie Lieber-Linn faced a similar challenge at their newly renovated campus. We hope that our donations helped ease their workload!

A unique feature about this donation cycle was the involvement of local private companies - donations from Pasadena Bio and Instil Bio went a long way in fulfilling the needs of our recipient schools!

LEAP's second donation drive was also a big success! In addition to our contributing labs, we also received huge financial support from Caltech Y, DEI committee of BBE (Department of Biology and Biological Engineering) and Caltech alumni.

We are glad to hear that feedback from Greg at Wasco Union High:

"The micropipettes couldn't have come at a better time, as they allowed all of our students to participate in the lab and learn the principles behind PCR. "

We have used a good amount of the glassware and graduated cylinders in various labs and our chemistry students are using the vernier probes as I am writing this email."

"We have been able to keep our students more engaged with the content as well and this is especially great as we recover from the effects of distance learning."

Over Spring 2022, we reached out to the Caltech community soliciting donations of lab equipment and supplies that could be useful for students at Stockdale High School. The Caltech community responded enthusiastically donating a total of 302 pieces of equipment!

The donations include: glassware | pipettes | filter paper | pH meter | hot plate | tube racks | forceps | slides and coverslips | plastic lab consumables | foldscopes | computer monitors and keyboards | temperature-controlled incubator

After confirming that the donated items were in good condition, we made our first LEAP donation delivery to Stockdale High School on April 23, 2022. Our donation had an immediate impact on our beneficiary:

" The computer monitors were a GODSEND! "

" ... all of the glassware you brought made it possible at the end of spring semester to encourage the students to actually conduct experiments without nearly as much worry! "