Agar Plates at Hazen High School [11/(18&22)/2022]

We had an amazing time growing microorganism cultures on agar plates at Hazen High School. In pairs, we chose hypotheses and tested them out. We let the plates culture over the weekend, and caught up over a Zoom call the next week. We uploaded our results, along with our hypotheses and observations, to an online platform. Then we voted on peers’ work for extra credit. The top-3 hypotheses from each period were:

Period 2:
– “We predicted that the men’s bathroom would have more microbes and bacteria than the women’s bathroom”
– “Our hypothesis was Shoe number #1 would grow more bacteria than shoe #2 because they were worn more.”
– “The Janitors cart is more dirty than the main hallway floor.”

Period 3:
– “I predict that the main staircase will have more microbes because it is used more often.”
– “We tested how effective water really is. We predicted that the unwashed hand would have more microbes than the washed hands.”
– “The eyewash station that is located in the front will grow less bacteria because it is used more often”

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Introducing the Academic Journal Sharing Service [10/21/2022]

Following a couple of journal distribution runs to local schools, we decided to streamline the process by officially creating a service for the purpose. We will work on integrating this service deeper into the community through our outreach partners. You may find a link to the dedicated page in our menu above, or equivalently below:

ACADEMIC JOURNAL SHARING SERVICE

Virtual/Augmented Reality Workshop with UW Reality Lab at Hazen High School [10/18/2022]

We partnered with the UW Reality Lab to conduct a 3 hour workshop at Hazen High School. It was really cool, and students had a lot of fun playing with Augmented/Virtual Reality headsets and doing some basic WebXR coding for them… FROM SCRATCH! Many thanks to UW Reality Lab and folks at Hazen for making this possible.

Potluck + Social [10/16/2022]

Following our virtual general information session earlier in the week (for the 20+ prospective members we gathered via mailing lists and tabling at the Red Square), we kicked the new academic year off with a fun afternoon outside the Physics and Astronomy Building! Many thanks to all who showed up (including new prospective members!), and to UW MEM-C for sponsoring chips and delicious cupcakes! WE HAD TWO FURRY FRIENDS JOIN US AND WE SAMPLED THEIR PAWS FOR MICROORGANISMS THAT WE CULTURED IN AGAR PLATES TO TEST MATERIAL FOR AN UPCOMING WORKSHOP. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Nicole had left by this point. :<

Major STEM Pals Reveal at UW MEM-C Conference in Friday Harbor Labs [09/(06-08)/2022]

We are privileged to have had the opportunity to officially introduce ourselves to the broader UW MEM-C community at their annual All Hands Conference in Friday Harbor Labs. This exposure to the membership of our primary funding source and endorser is bound to increase engagement (as we have already seen with new interest in our activities).

Some activities of note:

• Poster presentation on STEM Pals and our activities (we gave some swag out!)
• Meeting including MEM-C Director, other staff/faculty, and faculty at the University of Hawaii (who we are collaborating with on an upcoming project with native Hawaiian schools). SUPER COOL.
• A STEM Pals-specific segment during a broader presentation on ongoing outreach endeavors

Many thanks to all those who were involved, including several from our team!

Distributed 50 Journals! [05-06/2022]

On our request, UW MEM-C personnel donated 50 high-level academic journals. We facilitated their distribution to two local high schools over the last two months.

We hope that folks at Seattle World School and Hazen High School will find the journals insightful and motivational! Thank you, MEM-C!

Flashlight Soldering at Hazen High School [06/14/2022]

We had an amazing time facilitating our flashlight soldering activity in Hazen High School’s Materials Chemistry class! Thank you to Ms. Lin, UW MEM-C and the STEM Pals team!

_{Photos shared with student consent.}

Science Day at Seattle World School: Soldering Flashlights [05/16/2022]

We had a blast facilitating our flashlight soldering event during the entire school day at Seattle World School. Everyone had fun and went home with their own flashlight!
Many thanks to all STEM Pals volunteers, Mr. Yi and UW MEM-C for making this happen.

YES! This is our first ever STEM Pals-created in-person event! Here’s to the several more to come! ♪┏(・o・)┛♪┗ ( ・o・) ┓♪

Hazen High School Solar Derby (sponsored by the Clean Energy Institute) [05/04/2022]

We volunteered to help facilitate the Clean Energy Institute’s Solar Derby demo at Hazen High School.

Introduce a Girl to Biotechnology (sponsored by Women in ChemE) [04/02/2022]

Via Women in ChemE, we performed the photosynthetic flotation demo. We started letting the students make their own “samples” (punching holes in spinach leaves and getting the air out using the syringes). The hands-on aspect really seemed to work well and had better engagement.