Mission Science Workshop is big.
Big enough that one of its front windows, looking out onto the corner of Mission Street and Excelsior Avenue, fits a 35-foot gray whale skeleton known as “Gracie,” which has been retrofitted into a puzzle so that it can be taken apart and reassembled by kids learning anatomy.
The storefront was, until recently, one of a series of ubiquitous dollar stores in the Excelsior (and, in another iteration, one of a series of ubiquitous gambling shacks). But now, on any given day, there are students, from preschool to 12th grade, tinkering away inside.
They might be there on a field trip, or brought by someone from the Boys and Girls Club, or have made their way on their own on a free Saturday. They might be learning anything from anatomy to coding.
Not much is guaranteed on a trip to one of the three spaces run by Mission Science Workshop (it also has locations inside Mission High School and inside Dr. Charles L. Drew Elementary in Bayview), but one thing’s for sure: It will be hands-on.
To the right of the entrance, a group of 15 middle schoolers from the Boys and Girls Club are making tortilla presses in the woodworking area. A few are sawing blocks of wood; others are carefully pounding nails in an attempt to fasten two pieces of wood together without splitting it in the process.
Behind it is a “technology station” where, instead of screen time, kids can solder circuits. Adjacent to that are stacks of rocks that turn out to contain fossils (“That’s a 16-million-year-old,” this reporter is told, of an imprint of a surprised-looking fish in one slab of stone).
After the woodworking session is over, some kids veer over to the zoo in the back, home to corn snakes, guinea pigs, a bearded dragon, stick bugs and other insects. Every few minutes, a bottle rocket attached to a zipline shoots overhead; firing the “rocket” is so popular that kids chase it back and forth, trying to get a turn.
Across its three locations, the organization hosts nearly 20,000 students annually. It does the most outreach to San Francisco’s highest-need communities, kids who wouldn’t ordinarily have access to a space for tinkering and the tools to do it with.
The workshop partners with more than 62 schools in the area. Over 76 percent are Title 1 schools, which are schools that receive federal funding due to a high number of students from low-income families. It offers about 50 percent bilingual classes, and some English immersion classes.
The Excelsior branch of Mission Science Workshop opened in late 2013, then on the top floor of the old Fellowship Church, later moving a couple blocks down the commercial corridor to its current site at 4458 Mission St.
The Excelsior branch is the biggest of the three, and it’s no coincidence. The neighborhood has among the highest percentage of family households per capita in San Francisco: 70 percent of households are family residences, and 50 percent of residents are first-generation.
The workshop was founded in 1991 by Dan Sudran, a former United Farm Workers organizer and electrical technician who started out by opening his Mission garage to local kids as a tinkering space.
Today, the nonprofit, run by a team of staff, volunteers and high school interns, manages to not only comply with California standards for science education, but maintain the garage-like spirit of experimentation.
The kids aren’t the only ones making, learning and exploring. “I have staff coming to me all the time finding or learning something new,” said Executive Director Sonia Gandiaga.
On the workshop’s Tinker Tuesdays and Free Saturdays, anyone in the community is welcome to come, learn and create with the tools and materials offered by the workshop.
Last spring, city funding was slashed for the workshop and the greater Department of Children, Youth and their Families due to San Francisco’s $800 million deficit. Out of the $550,000 allocated for the workshop, the city only planned on giving $50,000 for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, according to Gandiaga. Thousands of workshop supporters sent emails to Mayor London Breed’s office, in support of having the workshop’s budget restored.
Gandiaga sees the workshop as much more than just a space for fun or education.
“When I come here, I see the San Francisco youth being curious and excited about the world, and about the future,” says Gandiaga. “It’s our privilege and honor to serve them. To give them the high quality science education they deserve.”
Mission Science Workshop is open to the public on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. (at its sites in the Mission, Bayview, and Excelsior) and on Tuesdays from 3 to 5 p.m. (in the Excelsior).
The program’s website says that Saturday community days are once-a-month per location. The website lists which Saturday each location is open, but the list ends on June?