WSU Museum of Art student interns and the Palouse Discovery Science Center will combine two unlikely things: science and art, bringing acids, bases, and art to the community.

Zach Mazur, WSU Museum of Art curator of education and collections, said children from the Palouse and their families are welcome to the Palouse Discovery Science Center to partake in their own scientific experiments and take home the artistic results.

The Art and Science Laboratory on the Palouse includes child-friendly science experiments involving pH testing, exhibiting the effects of gravity, and melting ice.

“It started with the idea of wanting a community outreach event, then was narrowed down to partnering with the Palouse Discovery Science Center,” said Kyla Lakin, education coordinator intern and WSU fine arts senior.

Mazur said he challenged the interns in charge of the project this semester to create an event that drew in the community.

“I’m the supervisor on this, but really it’s all the students’ work,” Mazur said.

He said Lakin was the lead on the project, and the only criteria he set were that the event has to connect the WSU community to the Pullman community.

Julianne Baggett, intern for the Museum of Art and fine arts senior, said she hopes the event will bring in local families and show them there’s more to art than just looking pretty. She said there’s a science to mixing materials and techniques in order to make an awesome creation.

“This opportunity allowed us to show children how science and art can be related,” Lakin said.

Baggett said she has been a part of staging exhibits and a part of planning the “laboratory” experiments.

 “I think it’s a fun spin on learning and education,” Baggett said. “Some of them include pH testing, which ends up looking like a tie-dye effect.”

Lakin said interns are typically in charge of planning an event in the spring called “Exposure” that draws the WSU community into the Museum of Art. Interns also plan in the future to reach out to the local grade schools in Pullman to teach in the classrooms, she said.

One of the goals the Museum of Art keeps in mind is to take STEM and turn it into STEAM, Mazur said. He said, the STEM fields include science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but art should really be in there too.

“New ideas come from a creative source,” Mazur said.

There is an artistic element in thinking outside of the box in the STEM fields, he said.

The event will take place at the Palouse Discovery Science Center from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. tomorrow.