Nearby are wall-to-wall displays of inventors, engineers and other blacks who have made their marks in white laboratory coats, all neatly arranged in a modest, gated storefront at 408 14th St., sandwiched between the Joyce Gordon Art Gallery and Planet Soule, a popular night spot.

For years, Carwell and others, including Frederick Jordan — an African-American engineer who has worked onnumerous airport developments — have sought a permanent home for the Museum of African American Technology Science Village.

"It's great to finally have a home," said Carwell, a physicist with the U.S. Department of Energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "We were so focused on finding a location that it took us away from our other community programs."

Now Carwell, the science village director, and others are working on an April 23 science fair to be held at the village offices. Student science exhibits will be showcased for three days, and there will be a ceremony to honor the best projects. Some of the Bay Area's top scientists will judge.

Jordan and the civic group 100 Black Women each donated $2,500 for the fair. Entry deadline is March 23.

"It's important for the community to know more about science and have fun with it," Carwell said.

The village operates on a $60,000 annual budget. Carwell would like to see more financial donations from the community and tours with children and their parents.

Carwell's mission is to expose more minorities to the contributions of blacks in science, mathematics and engineering so more young people will consider those careers. "(Africans) have been involved with science and technology for centuries," she said, standing near a display of scientific contributions of ancient Egyptians. "So why shouldn't this still be the case?"

Today, however, only 2 percent of the nation's scientists and engineers are black. The dearth of African Americans in those fields prompted minority professionals in the 1970s to start talking about the need for a black-focused science museum.

In 2000, Carwell and others with the Northern California Council of Black Professional Engineers put together the beginnings of what would become traveling exhibits in Oakland public schools. For a short period, the museum was at 20th Street and San Pablo Avenue, inside a building shared by other tenants.

In June 2003, the museum learned it had to move. Last year, it secured the new storefront.

Visitors have included Edward Joseph Dwight Jr., who, while serving as an Air Force pilot in 1961, was selected by President John F. Kennedy to become the nation's first black astronaut. After Kennedy's assassination in 1963, some military officers tried to discredit Dwight's position as a trained military astronaut, and he later resigned.

Guion Bluford, who joined NASA in 1979, became the first black to orbit the earth. He also visited the Oakland Museum of California.

Both men are part of a NASA display at the storefront, along with other African-American astronauts, including Mae Jamison and three other black women who are now ready for space exploration and research.

For more information about the Science Village, call 893-6426 or go to www.ncalifblackengineers.org.

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