Middle School

The National Marine Mammal Foundation strives to make the science behind working with marine mammals accessible to the public. We provide information on marine mammal research, conservation, and biology, as well as have hands on activities and biofacts to engage even the youngest of students.

Can you trust what you see? How good is your memory? Find out about the science behind your perceptions and memory. These demonstrations reveal amazing information from Psychological Science about distortions in visual perception and the limits of your memory.

UCSD Skaggs School of Pharmacy booth will provide an exposure to the health services that pharmacists provide to our society. Through a series of fun and interactive activities, visitors will get the chance to learn about different disease such as hypertension, diabetes and asthma. Furthermore, the booth will provide information about immunization, medication safety and pharmaceutical. -Examples of interactive activities include: Learning how it feels to have asthma. Learning how inhalers work and how to use them properly.

Student exhibit of STEM Challenge activities.

Make your own colorful lava lamps to take home. The test tubes from Steve Spangler Science can be used to do 15 more experiments at home.

The mission of the Bioinformatics booth is to introduce prospective students and parents to an emerging interdisciplinary field that is focused on handling large datasets and computational problem solving, in order to address complex biological problems. Such outreach is valuable to the scientific community as a whole, because it advertises the accomplishments in the field, and the dedication of the scientists and engineers involved.

The San Diego River is teeming with life, from 4 foot tall herons to microscopic algae. We invite you to learn from River Park Foundation scientists how the organisms that live in the river can unlock secrets about the San Diego River’s health! Look at real aquatic bugs, play games, and learn about places to explore nature along the San Diego River.

Two groups from University of California-Irvine will explore concepts of light using fun, take-home activities such as our popular Spectrobox, kaleidoscopes, and optical illusion demos! In addition, we will be exhibiting a newly developed game that explores atomic structure from the point of view of an atom!

Visitors to the booth can participate in a walkthrough illustrating the basics of genetics and how DNA can affect our physical beings. Following the walkthrough, visitors can enjoy three hands on activity stations. The first is a Build your own DNA station, where visitors can build a base or practice pairing them. The second is a genetic engineering station, where student can manipulate circuits or help insert a plasmid (glow bracelet) into a bacteria (balloon). At the final station, a robot can be build based on the selection of dominate or recessive genes from two parent robots.

Enrichment program for elementary and middle school