Top: (Left to right) Dr. Qi Xie (postdoc, Schepartz lab), Dr. Preeta Pratakshya (postdoc, Francis lab), Amos Nissley (graduate student, Cate lab), Roan Winthrop (undergraduate, Cate lab). Bottom left: Pasta-mers made at the Bay Area Science Festival with 3D printed examples of RNA and proteins. Bottom right: A pasta-mer made during a BASIS lesson at a Bay Area elementary school.
Over the weekend, C-GEM celebrated the return of the Bay Area Science Festival at the UCSF Mission Bay Campus. More than 10,000 members of the public toured UCSF labs, visited the robot zoo, and participated in over 120 hands-on activities and demonstrations, including C-GEM’s “Pasta-mers” activity. C-GEM scientists taught the science of biopolymers to hoards of attendees, demonstrating with dried pasta and pipe cleaners how polymer sequence and shape inform function.
On Monday and Tuesday, C-GEM researchers visited Bay Area elementary schools as a part of Community Resources for Science’s (CRS) Bay Area Scientists Inspiring Students (BASIS) program. C-GEM partnered with CRS to adapt “Pasta-mers” into an hour-long lesson for K-5 classrooms, guiding students through the process of engineering a polymer for different functions.
Try “Pasta-mers” at home by clicking the button below!