Daniel Butler Elementary STEM Night

I volunteered to lead a table and my son's elementary school STEM night. My friend Meghan and I worked together to run our station. Two people were enough to run both sides smoothly, but a third would have been great especially for bathroom breaks and water refills (were talking CONSTANTLY). On one side of the table we had a stereo dissecting microscope and LED light source set up. We had the students looking at dead flies stuck to the bottom of a petri dish with double stick tape. On one side of the dish were two males and females mounted on their sides and backs. On the other side of the dish were some examples of different phenotypes. White eyes, bar eyes, curly wings, etc. This station also had a laminated diagram showing the similarities and differences between males and females. On the second side of the table I had brought 4 bottles of wild type flies from our lab. The bottles were about 2 weeks old, so the students could see all parts of the life cycle in one vessel. The plugs were taped down VERY WELL. I also had laminated handouts showing the life cycle of the fly as well as the similarities in body systems between humans and fruit flies. I think the students were engaged with both parts of our station. Some were very excited just to be looking through a microscope at ANYTHING. They enjoyed looking at flies but also at their fingernails and at the DNA they made at the strawberry DNA extraction station next door. Some kids found it tricky to see through the scope, but asking them to try looking through with just one eye was helpful. There was a range of reactions to the bottles of flies from completely disgusted to bored to fascinated. Both of the laminated sheets showing the life cycle and the similarities between flies and humans were extremely useful to help the kids visualize in a different way what they were seeing in the bottles and through the scope. This also led us to conversations about how we can use flies to study human bodies and human diseases, like ALS and Alzheimer's. We received incredibly positive feedback from the organizers and from the parents, especially about the part where we were very clear with the kids that “yes, we are scientists” and “Oh absolutely women can be scientists. ANYONE can be a scientist.” I think the students enjoyed our station even though they didn't have a physical object the made like some of the other stations. The parents who were accompanying some of the younger kids also seemed interested and had great questions. Oh, yeah, we had a TON of great questions from the students. Some wanted even more information to share with their friends, especially about how we can study human diseases using Drosophila as a model organism.