Science Labs

For school groups, labs cost $275 for lab with a maximum capacity of 32 students. A $50 deposit is required per lab at booking.

For Title I school groups, the $275 fee for labs can be waived depending on the availability of funding from our donors. Book early to secure funding. A refundable $50 deposit is required per lab at booking. Deposits will be refunded when you check in on your field trip day. Canceling a lab within three weeks of the scheduled date will result in forfeiture of your deposit, unless the cancellation was due to a public health directive.

If you are an educator at a Title I school and have been granted a fee-waived lab, you are required to implement one of the provided pre-lab activities (journal writing and/or vocabulary) and post-lab activities (journal writing and/or activity) in your classroom. All pre-lab activities can be found in the educator resource guides.

To reserve an Science Lab, please indicate your interest on our Request a Field Trip form. When a Group Reservations specialist calls to schedule your trip, they will guide you through the booking process.

The health and safety of our school groups is our top priority. We have updated our health and safety protocols as follows:

• Mandated masks for all guests, regardless of vaccination status.
• Upgraded our HVAC filters.
• Use electrostatic sprayer to clean materials and chairs between classes.
• Wipe down tables after each class.
• Purchased extra sets of safety goggles, so they are only used once per day. They are cleaned in a UV cabinet at the end of each day.

Educator resource guides

Each lab has an associated educator resource guide filled with pre-lab information and resources to help teachers prepare students for the lab experience and connect it to the classroom. These guides include a brief summary of the lab; state and national standard connections; related internet links and games; The Tech Interactive’s gallery and exhibit connections; writing prompts; and pre-lab vocabulary terms, graphic organizers and activities.

Writing prompts and lab journals

Keeping a lab journal is an essential part of any scientist’s or engineer’s job. A lab journal serves as an ongoing collection of ideas, prototypes, drawings, data, calculations, failures, successes and conclusions.

We have designed a simple lab journal to be used by your young engineers and scientists in The Tech Interactive Science Labs in the hope that they too will document their hard work from classroom to lab and beyond.

The journals are blank and include two pages each for vocabulary, pre-lab writing, lab notes and sketches, exhibit notes and sketches, and post-lab writing. Although you do not have to use all of the sections, we feel that doing so will optimize your students’ learning experiences in the lab and galleries. Implementing the lab journal is also one method of incorporating language arts into your science curriculum.  

All of our labs support Next Generation Science Standards, Common Core Language Arts and California Science Content Standards. Details on connections to grade-level standards:

What Lab for What Grade? (PDF)
Second Grade Standards Connections (PDF)
Third Grade Standards Connections (PDF)
Fourth Grade Standards Connections (PDF)
Fifth Grade Standards Connections (PDF)
Middle School Standards Connections (grades 6-8) (PDF)
High School Standards Connections (grades 9-12) (PDF)