Orpheum Children’s Museum Day Camp – Girls Do Science: Many members of GEEB volunteered this year at Girls Do Science co-sponsored by CU’s Orpheum Children’s Science Museum and NSF grant DEB 1120804 awarded to Carla Cáceres (lab website). Thanks to the diverse background of the GEEB students, UIUC Faculty, and Orpheum Staff volunteers, campers were engaged in fun science exhibits from bird identification and a wild flower walk to embryology.
Category: Outreach
Below are just of the few GEEB Outreach events
Look at the Event Calendar for upcoming events both outreach and otherwise!
Have an outreach event you would like to schedule? Email Stephany Virrueta-Herrera (svirru2@illinois.edu)
April 2012 – Fruit Forensics at Urbana Free Library
Banana has been murdered! Who was the villan? Was it his neighbor grape, his girlfriend strawberry, or his best friend kiwi? Kids at the event isolated DNA from common fruits using household materials then sent the DNA off to the “lab” for analysis. The resulting DNA profiles were mapped onto the mock gel and the patterns were compared. Due to our careful analysis grape was arrested for the crime.
April 2012 – Leal Elementary’s Science Night
Leal Elementary’s Science Night: Building on our theme of “Backyard Ecology”, we had three tables overflowing with native Illinois plants and animals. Graduate students from Plant Biology also joined us to show the students how to isolate strawberry DNA!
January 2012 – Curious Creatures
Curious Creatures: GEEB took their wares indoors and wowed elementary and preschool age children at the Urbana Free Library. Due to the huge popularity of our live and preserved specimens at the Urbana Farmers Market we reused quite a few of our exhibits.There were four stations set up with a different theme: food webs; insects; birds; and reptiles. Once again the reptiles and insects stole the show, however, there was a lot of fun going on at all stations. Our event was a huge success and we had over 100 children and parents attend.
Summer 2011- Science at the Market
Dr. Inga Karliner (lab website) has spearheaded the “Science at the Market” movement. Each week during the summer months Dr. Karliner has arranged for a scientific presence in the community area at the Urbana Farmers Market. GEEB participated in this program and our booth theme was backyard ecology. We had exhibits ranging from live reptiles, insects, and fish to preserved specimens of common Illinois mammals and birds. We also had a kids sticker station where they could build their own backyard food web. We also produced a handout to help students identify plant and animal species common to Illinois. The event was a huge success and we will be participating again in the summer of 2012.