Workshops
Juice from Juice: solar energy and blackberries
How can we obtain electricity using blackberries? Learn about solar cells and how to construct a simple dye-sensitized solar cell using blackberry juice.
Mission to Mars
NASA will land humans on Mars in your lifetime. It’s time to start preparing! Use the virtual reality WorldWide Telescope visualization software to plan your mission to Mars. Where will you land? What instruments will you bring? What will you learn?!
Building The City of the Future!
Learn what it takes to become an architect and how sustainable design is being used to create better buildings for the future. In this worship we will explore cutting edge design strategies and you will get to design your own skyscraper for downtown Chicago.
Particle Detectives: Gathering Clues to the Universe
Particle physicists are like detectives. We try to understand what the universe is made from and how it is structured, but the tiniest things that make up the universe (which are particles) are even smaller than atoms, and we cannot see them directly by eye or even with microscopes. Instead we have to use clues to “see” the particles. In this workshop, you will learn how we gather clues with giant particle detectors, and you will use the same techniques to collect clues that will help you “see” things in our experimental test stations.
Eat your work! A day in the life as a food scientist!
Find out how food goes from the field to your breakfast bowl. Become a food scientist for the day and make your own blend of oatmeal using a variety of grains, fruits, and nuts with the Quaker!
Stitches and switches
In this hands-on workshop, we combine the beauties of Art and Science by making our very own robot plushies! Join us as we embark on a journey of electric circuits, where we’ll learn how to sew with conductive thread and learn how to make various types of circuits with LEDs and batteries. If we complete the circuit correctly, the robot’s eyes will light up!
The fun doesn’t end there. There will be a variety of LED, felt and marker colors to choose from, so get creative! Perhaps give it a smile or a nose? Maybe your robot will have a mohawk or a hair bow?
At the end of the workshop, you will have a super cool robot plushie to take home. And of course, bragging rights to all your friends that you are now a robot making engineer! We hope that this will be the start to your collection of electronic plushies!
The Germs that Live on Us
What are germs? Why do they make us sick? Are all germs bad? In this workshop, you’ll learn about the germs that live on us and how some of them can make us sick but others are harmless or even beneficial. You’ll even have a chance to grow germs from your own hands on a Petri plate! We’ll do the experiment together during the workshop, and you can take the Petri plates home to watch the germs grow over 2-3 days.
Peeling off banana DNA
What makes roses beautiful, cockroaches creepy, bananas yellow or you the way you are? A simple answer is “DNA”, the blueprint that cells use to build everything they need. Learn how to extract DNA from banana cells. Not only will you get the feeling of working in a research lab, but you will also learn how scientists use DNA to make new medicines, to catch criminals, and to find out whom our great-great- grandparents were.
Don’t get caught with your plants down!
Chainsaws, ropes, and microscopes–these are just some of the everyday tools Stephanie Adams, a plant pathologist and arborist at The Morton Arboretum, uses to take care of trees and plants. Learn about tree care and plant diseases that you might find in your own yard, grocery store, or even your refrigerator!
Rooting Into Your Future
Do you want to learn how to clone plants? Discover the wonderful world of plant propagation with horticulturists from The Chicago Botanic Garden. You will even take home your very own plant!
Make your dough glow
Remember all the fun you had playing with the play dough? You have a chance to create your favorite dough creature and make it glow using battery and LED lights. With the help of an engineer you will make a dough electric circuit and take it home to share with your friends and family.
Flappy Bird Game
Learn the basics of computer programming with technologists from Morningstar. You will use drag-and-drop programming to make your own Flappy Bird game, and customize it to look different (Flappy Shark, Flappy Santa, etc.).
Sphero- Choreograph a robot dance
Sphero is a super cute robotic ball with a computer board inside that communicates with mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets to perform actions. It also has an LED light, a gyroscope and an accelerometer inside to orient itself, plus wheels to move. To drive it around, you need to understand how a robot sees the world. In this workshop we will use MacroLab to program a choreography based on beautiful geometric shapes for Sphero to move and change color at each step.
CSI Invertebrates
Come explore the diversity of spineless animals and learn how scientists make the “tree of life”. Then become a forensic scientist by using DNA to identify the invertebrate culprit at the scene of an environmental crime.
Frozen: how germs use ice as a tool
Germs are everywhere! While some can make us sick, most are harmless and some are even crucial for our survival. In our module, you will learn about how germs play an important role in our daily lives. You will also learn to think like a scientist while we perform real experiments with some of these ‘good’ germs!
How do Inventors Protect Their Inventions
Do you dream of inventing new things? Ever wonder how inventors protect their inventions from others using and selling it without their permission. Patents are the way engineers and scientist protect their inventions and they need the help of patent attorneys to secure this protection. Meet with patent attorney members of the Chicago Chapter of Women in Bio to learn about how they help these inventors apply for a patent. We will also introduce the parts of patent and follow the guidelines in a patent to make the invention which it protects.
Peanut Butter Jelly Time
Would you give directions to computers the same way you’d give those directions to your best friend? We will explore this question by coming up with instructions how to make a peanut butter (actually soy nut butter) and jelly sandwich and then executing these directions as a machine (robot) reading them would. Depending on how we execute this task, we might even try some of our creations as we discuss programming basics. Time permitting, we might even try another task with our new communication skills. We hope to see you there!
Expanding Your Horizons Chicago 