The final event marking the San Francisco team’s week long celebration of science was ‘The Grand Experiment’. It was a pop-up science event hosted at the wonderful Art Ventures Gallery in Menlo Park downtown, catering to kids and adults alike.
We had a whole host of interactive activities from every different field of science. A little something for everyone!
YOUR DNA IN A NECKLACE
The Stanford genetics team helps children extract their own DNA from saliva and take it home as a wearable necklace.
CORAL BLEACHING
Lorraine Ling teaches families how climate change connects to coral bleaching by looking at different types of coral through a microscope. The whole reef ecosystem depends on the symbiosis between corals and microscopic algae.
PROTEIN SPEED DATING USING VIRTUAL REALITY
Rasmus Fonseca, from the Michael Levitt lab uses his virtual reality technology to show how scientists use technology to gain a better understanding of protein structure.
BRAIN AND ILLUSIONS
Elizabeth Seckel demonstrates different ‘out of body’ experiences and touches upon (pun intended) the different neurological conditions and artificial laboratory situations in which this very assumption is called into question. We got to experience live how our body image can be weirdly disrupted.
HOW DO PLANTS BREATHE?
Ximena Anleu Gil and Katelyn McKown use microscopes to show visitors how plants breathe using unique cells called stomata.
EXOPLANET IMAGING
NASA scientist Eduardo Bendek tells children about his work on how to image exoplanets (planets outside our solar system) and other planetary bodies to further explore our universe.
SCIENCE RAP
Tom McFadden is 8th grade science teacher by day and a science rapper by night. Here he is ‘rocking out’ about fossil rocks! Check out more of his amazing science raps on his youtube channel 'Science with Tom'
