Middle School

Since 2009 Castle Park High students, with Dr. Pomeroy of UCSD, have learned to produce biodiesel from vegetable oil. Students use a particle counter to determine how “clean” the fuel burns and discuss how particulate impacts our global climate. Students present this field data to support the benefits of biodiesel. Our booth, as in years past, will demonstrate the step-by-step process of biodiesel synthesis, discuss the advantages of biodiesel over petroleum and outline the ease of production.

Our demonstration will give students hands on experience with the fundamentals of genetic engineering. Using craft zippers, students will see how new genes can be incorporated into the genome and express a different function. Volunteers will teach and guide students through the demonstration alongside a poster board that contains informative concepts.

We will have hands-on engineering, marine biology, chemistry, and or other STEM activities. also, we will provide information about STEM programs for 2nd-12 grades.

Come and participate in an interactive experiment and learn all about the fun science programs we offer to the community!

Guests will understand the principles of buoyancy by experimenting with their own diver. Participants will be able to- ● Define and understand the concept of buoyancy ● Explain how a fish moves up and down in the water column ● Engage in the scientific process by conducting a water experiment using a diver and playing with the concept of buoyancy.

Robotics: - Remote controlled robots - Rubik's Cube Solver Robot Programming; - Video game programmed by middle school students Hands On; - Building bristle bots

We will have multiple interactive stations including: 1) Comparative Brain Anatomy- play a guessing game to see which brains belongs to which animal species. 2) Sheep Brain- hold preserved sheep brain and learn about parts of the mammalian brain. 3) Spiker Box- make a cockroach leg dance and learn about how your brain communicates with your muscles to guide your everyday movements. 4) EMG Module- learn how we can use electrical activity from your muscles to control a mechanical claw.

We will be explaining the chemistry (acid/bases) behind invisible inks. Kids will write messages to their friends or family, and we'll show them how to reveal the invisible messages. The invisible ink will be dilute laundry detergent, milk, or soapy water. They'll write the messages using a paintbrush or cotton bud, and optionally add a "cover up" message using regular pen. Then we'll show reveal the invisible message by shining ultraviolet light on the paper, or by spraying a basic solution.

Activities will highlight concepts from Psychological Science touching upon brain, cognitive, perceptual processes and emotion. Activities will feature visual illusions, sensorimotor tasks, short term memory exercises, mapping of visual shapes to speech sounds, visual inversion and tests for recognizing emotional facial expressions. These activities appeal to a wide range of guests from children to adults. This outreach explores the science of mental processes and behaviors.