The first of 3 steps - swabbing the control panel!
Out tabling activity was a hit with kids!
SoundBio was delighted to participate in a special event at the Museum of Flight on June 26th. The purpose of the event was to celebrate a new traveling Smithsonian exhibit now on display called ‘Destination to the Moon’. This exhibit celebrates one of mankind’s most groundbreaking accomplishments - sending astronauts to the moon! The mission (Apollo 11) happened 50 years ago and marked an extraordinary moment in the history of space exploration.
To celebrate Apollo’s 50th anniversary, SoundBio wanted to come up with something exciting and new for the Museum of Flight. With help from some wonderful volunteers, including a member of UW’s Astrobiology department, we devised a new tabling activity entitled “Find the Spaceship Germ”. The kids performed 3 steps:
Swab a contaminated ‘control panel’, then transfer the ‘germs’ to a microtube.
Pipet the liquid from the tube onto a petri dish.
Incubate the petri dish and discover the bacterial colonies.
While kids did not directly handle the bacterial colonies, we did have fun explaining how the germs could be separated and grown so that scientists could better study them. Overall the kids and parents had a great time thinking about science in space!
If this type of activity sounds interesting, please don’t hesitate to contact us at info (at) sound.bio. We are always looking for more folks to help with our educational outreach events.
Thank you to our wonderful volunteers: Kalyani, Holly, Tracy and Anastasia (not pictured).
