Education outreach in Denver

Teaching future generations on the importance of science and how exciting it can be is something I take to heart. Today, two of our teams worked in parks that were near elementary schools. My site (Bates and Hobart Park) coordinated with science teachers at Taylor Elementary School, while the green team was at Elmendorf Park and coordinated with science teachers at John Amesse Elementary School. Many thanks to these schools and teachers for coming out with their students to talk to us!

It was a clear day with the only hazard being some trees close by. At my site, unfortunately our 30 meter sampling box did have to come down due a negative interaction with one of the trees early on. While bringing the sampling box down was not ideal, it did come into use later on when classes from the elementary school came by to check out what we were doing. Besides being able to point out and teach the kids about the site itself, we were able to show them an actual sampling box and have them witness the sampling box open up and close.

The best part of being able to present a sampling box to the students were the questions that were asked. I swear, every inch of that box was talked about due to the questions that those inquisitive kids asked. “How does the box go up and down? Who built the box? How do the bacteria stick to the plates?”. It was great! In total 118 people, including about 80 elementary kids, came up to our site and asked great questions. It was inspiring to see so many members of the community interested in what was going on. One enthusiastic young man drew us a picture of what he thought of our project. :-)