Education
A simulated walk through the solar system takes hikers through a roughly four-mile loop in the East Bay Regional Parks, starting at the Chabot Space and Science Center and ending in the dark.
Teachers searching for new jobs and parents looking for new childcare options got some last-minute good news—the seven childhood development centers slated to close last Friday due to budget cuts will remain open for another month. The Oakland Unified School District announced it was allocating $400,000 in federal stimulus money to keep the centers running through the end of August.
Judy Lee has already begun packing her boxes. Full of art supplies and Shel Silverstein books, the boxes sat neatly stacked near the wall of her spacious classroom at the Piedmont Avenue Early Childhood Development Center on Wednesday, a telltale sign of the center’s imminent closure.
In the shade of large, leafy lettuce and kale and tall stalks of beans, approximately 150 Bay Area residents met Saturday at the Saint Martin de Porres Elementary School garden to show their support for the nonprofit organization that planted it to give Oakland students a chance to learn about nutrition.
At a time when Oakland is strapped for cash and seems to have no clear plan for economic revitalization, one Stanford University junior says he has the answer: a streetcar system.
What do you get when you mix an outdoor market, workshops on healthy eating and food justice? A Phat Beets farmers’ market. This new North Oakland weekly farmers’ market, which debuted on Saturday, is more than just buying food locally—it’s about education, health and the community.
Bay Area Girls Rock Camp kicked off last week in downtown Oakland. Eighty girls, from ages 8 to 18, learned to play guitar, drums, synthesizer and sing. This is the third summer of Bay Area Girls Rock Camp, where attendees get to do more than just learn about music—they also go to screen printing classes where they design band logos and print them on t-shirts, take self-defense classes, participate in image and identity workshops, and learn about song writing and music her-story.
On an outdoor deck overlooking Lake Merritt, kids are busy sawing, hammering and sanding wood. Carpentry is just one of the classes offered at the Junior Center of Art and Science during its summer arts and science camp, which just kicked off on Monday. The Junior Center of Art and Science is an independent non-profit organization that has been in Oakland for 55 years and works to use a hands-on approach in teaching kids about science and art.
Something has recently changed in South Berkeley—big colorful paintings are popping up in formerly vacant storefront windows. They were all made by low-income youth, mostly from Oakland, paid to paint by an organization called Youth Spirit Artworks — an organization that hires teens to beautify local neighborhoods.