Annual Plant Science Day to have hands-on experiments
Targeted toward children, include clorophyll extraction activities
“Too often, kids just get to hear about different science experiments,” John Hadish, the organization’s vice president, said. “We want them to be able to engage in hands-on science experiments.”
April 19, 2019
WSU’s Molecular Plant Sciences Graduate Student Organization is hosting the fifth annual Plant Science Day on Saturday.
John Hadish, the organization’s vice president, said the free event will be from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Vogel Plant Biosciences Building concourse. There will be signs posted around the building to point drivers toward free parking spaces.
Hadish said Plant Science Day is an outreach event for the Palouse community and is targeted toward children ages 5 to 13, but family members are welcome to attend.
He said the event will have booths featuring different hands-on experiments. Some booths will include chlorophyll extraction activities, as well as plant-based tie-dye sessions. There will also be ice cream made from plants and liquid nitrogen.
“The grad students have a choice — some of them choose to do stuff related to their actual research, whereas others choose to … [do] things they normally wouldn’t get to play around with,” Hadish said.
He said the organization began planning the event about five months ago. Around 25 graduate students and officers will manage booths at the event.
Hadish said this is his second year participating in the event. Last year, Hadish managed a booth that involved children who identified different types of conifers by the trees’ cones.
“I really like the outdoors, and I really feel like it’s important for kids to realize there’s more types of trees than just pine trees,” he said. “There’s a lot of variety of trees on our world.”
He said last year’s event had around 150 attendees from the Pullman, Moscow and Lewiston areas. Hadish said he expects a similar amount of attendees this year.
Hadish said the organization promoted the event by posting it on social media and local schools’ public forums.
He said the goal of the event is to encourage children to engage in science from an early age and build interest in the subject.
“Too often, kids just get to hear about different science experiments,” Hadish said. “We want them to be able to engage in hands-on science experiments.”
