Educational Studies Program/Splash!

The mission of the Stanford Educational Studies Program community is to reach out, to enthuse young eager minds, and share our muses and sources of joy and inspiration with people around us, especially high school students.

We offer days on campus full of academic and non-academic classes taught by Stanford students. ESP invites students to attend classes that could vary from completely “non-academic” stuff like cookie baking and origami, to complicated and challenging classes on machine theory or quantum mechanics.

The Splash! program fee is $40, but generous need-based financial aid is available.

Stanford Science Circles

The Stanford Middle School and High School Science Circles are academic enrichment programs for students in the Stanford area who are interested in the sciences. Activities take place in the evening during the academic year. Program fee of $250 or $375 per quarter.

 

Field Trips to a Haptics and Robotics in Medicine Lab

The Collaborative Haptics and Robotics in Medicine (CHARM) Lab offers field trips and demos/presentations in local K-12 classrooms and on campus. The CHARM Lab creates robots and human-computer interfaces that use haptics in order to improve human health, safety, and quality of life. The word haptics refers to the sense of touch. Applications of our research include:

• Robot-assisted surgery
• Simulation and training
• Rehabilitation
• Prosthetics

Stanford Math Circle

Math circles are weekly gatherings of high school, middle school, and elementary school students working on problems involving complex and advanced mathematical topics, guided by mathematicians and educators. Fee of $250 per quarter.

Public Lectures and Events

Stanford offers many free lectures for the general public on science and engineering topics that are delivered by Stanford's top researchers in terms understandable to the lay public. Examples include the SLAC Lecture Series and the Summer Science Lecture Series. See the "Lectures & Public Events" page on this site for more information.

KIPAC/VIZ Lab Tours

The Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, or KIPAC, is an independent laboratory of Stanford University based at SLAC in Menlo Park. It serves as a bridge between the disciplines of astrophysics, cosmology and particle physics. One of KIPAC's missions is to reach out to local communities and provide resources and tools for K-12 teachers, students and the general public. KIPAC offers: • Tours for your students • Speakers for your classroom • A viewing of one of their presentations in the Visualization Lab (Viz Lab), including a 3-D movie that traces the development of the universe, from the birth of the first star to the formation of the galaxies.

Campus Tours

The Stanford Visitor's Center offers many public tours.

• Walking tours for the general public,
• Self-guided podcast tours,
• Special tours for high school students interested in attending Stanford,
• Tours designed exclusively for school, team, or community groups larger than 10 people

Class Visits to the Stanford Nanobrication Facility (SNF)

SNF invites K-12 school classes and groups to visit our cleanroom facilities, where micro and nanotechnology devices are fabricated and researched.   We offer an array of visit and tour formats, including introductory presentations on nanoscience and nanofabrication, cleanroom gowning activities, and different types of tours (including guided window and webcam tours, including nanofabrication demos) with the opportunity to meet and talk with researchers and staff who work on our facility.  See the “SNF Tours” link on the SNF Education webpage linked above.