We had an amazing time running our booths at Westgate Elementary’s Science Night! Many thanks to the UW Department of Physics for lending their demos!
Introduce a Girl to Green Technology (WChE) [02/18/2023]
We had a blast hosting Wind Energy and Oil Spills & Wildlife booths at Women in Chemical Engineering’s (WChE) 7th annual Introduce a Girl to Green Technology event! Kids made their own pinwheels as we introduced them to renewable energy, and also learned about how oil spills affect wildlife with a fascinating water, oil, and soap demonstration.
PacSci Collaboration: Fire of Love [02/09/2023]
We kicked off our collaboration for broader community engagement with the Pacific Science Center by securing a speaker – our very own Maleen Kidiwela – for a talk and Q&A about volcanoes during their IMAX showing of the documentary Fire of Love: https://pacificsciencecenter.org/igniter-science-movie/
Coding Workshop Summer 2023 [RSVP by 01/31/2023]
We are looking for 2 schools to participate in a FREE coding workshop this Summer 2023. This workshop is geared towards high school students with no prior programming experience. We will introduce students to the Python programming language from scratch and familiarize them with basic applications in this bootcamp-styled workshop that culminates in a fun project. A Certificate of Completion will be awarded following final project presentations!
The workshop’s structure will depend on how your school functions over the summer. A sample workshop would span 3 weeks with 2-3 sessions per week, with each session being 2-3 hours. Our instructors will come to your school. Participating schools will have to commit at least 15 students in high school grades by January 31, 2023.
This workshop is organized by STEM Pals at the University of Washington, which is supported by UW MEM·C, the University of Washington Molecular Engineering Materials Center. STEM Pals is committed to encouraging, inspiring & (st)empowering high school students to pursue STEM-related activities and education post-graduation.
If you are interested in this opportunity or have any questions, please contact us.
End of Year Cookie Decoration Party! [12/11/2022]
We had a blast decorating cookies for our last social of 2022!
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”
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:
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
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!
STEM Pals 