Team:Calgary/News/Campus Fair

During the University of Calgary Campus Fair, we held three main activities: making “biosaurs,” a pipetting competition, and guessing the number of tube caps in a bag. The “biosaurs” were crafted from sheets of foam, glitter, glue, and coloured pens and the kids seemed to be fascinated by the idea of bringing their bacteria to life by using different types of crafts.

For the pipetting competition, we provided kids with plastic pipettes, tubes, coloured water and pseudo-lab gear and had them compete by trying to fill the most tubes with water using pipettes. We were incredibly surprised at the number of kids wanting to participate in this competition and as such, we held multiple competitions to accommodate everyone. Everyone participating in the competition received some type of prize, including kind donations from one of our sponsors Alberta Ingenuity. After the competition, the pipettes and coloured water were left out so the kids could continue to play. This activity was very well received as the kids loved “dressing up like mad scientists!”

Lastly, we prepared a bag full of tube caps and asked kids to guess how many they thought there were in the bag. It seemed that the prize “Totally Wacky Scientist” captivated many kids because by the end of the day we had more than 100 kids attempt at guessing. This was simply one more initiative in order to promote iGEM and to generate interest in science for young kids.