Check Out Our past outreach events!
Georgetown Steam Plant’s: Science Fair 2025 - 09/20/25
The Georgetown STEAM Plant held their 2nd anniversary hit community science fair event! SoundBio Lab was happy to be involved as an interactive science table for kids to get their hands dirty with science. For this event, we held our “Strawberry DNA Extraction” and “Painting with Blueberries” experiments alongside showcasing library book resources to promote DIY science at home. Kids mashed up different kinds of fruit and either extracted DNA or changed PH balance pigments to show visual indicators of laboratory science. These new young scientists were able to take home their findings and now know how to replicate the experiments at home to show their family and friends.
Check out GTSP post:https://www.georgetownsteamplant.org/2025
Agroforestry Northwest’s: Connections To Land - 09/19/25
SoundBio Lab joined the first “Connections To The Land” event held on a rural farm: Raising Cane Ranch hosted by Agroforestry Northwest. This non-profit builds collaborative relationships in the PNW to educate landowners/farmers/ranchers on agroforestry practices to promote biocultural restoration, biodiversity, resilient production, etc. This is the first rural event SoundBio Lab has participated in Snohomish, WA to reach a new farming community interested in learning science. We sat alongside artists intersecting nature, art, and science to promote accessibility, fun, and a safe space to learn . Our tabling workshop included library resources to access kid friendly science experiments as well as two hands-on experiments called "Mushroom Spore Printing" and “Painting with Blueberries”. With the first activity, participants learned about mushroom anatomy, species ID, and spore print colors that can create wonderful art - everyone was able to take home their own set of mushrooms to see their art emerge the next day. In the second workshop, participants saw the blueberry pigment change color as the extracted juice was exposed to both acidic and basic environments, and with the pink, blue, or purple pigments the participants painted their art.
Check out Agroforestry NW event post:https://agroforestrynw.com/news/creative-ecology-connecting-art-land-and-community-at-raising-cane-ranch
GoldenBrick Event’s: Refuge Outdoor Festival Community Market - 08/23/25
SoundBio Lab joined this community tabling event alongside POC artistic small businesses and environmental groups throughout Washington to educate the community of opportunities for POC to engage in environmentalism, outdoor recreation, activism, and science. We demonstrated our biological laboratory science workshop offerings with hands-on marine specimens Dogfish, seaweed, and seashells to observe with a blue light and microscopes. Also, to envision a career in laboratory science, participants could wear PPE and discuss its importance in lab safety.
GoldenBrick Event’s: Refuge Day at Bridle Trails Park - 06/22/25
SoundBio Lab joined Golden Brick Events for our first outdoor workshop “Foraging for Mushrooms” to teach about the intersection of nature and science. At our table participants learned about microscopes vs foldscopes, different mushroom species in Bridle Trails Park with a species ID guide, and use a “Psilocybin Test Strip” to test if store bought mushrooms contain this compound. On our mushroom hike, young adults joined me in finding mushrooms, learning about their typical habitat, and examining wild mushrooms with a microscope. No mushrooms were eaten!
Seattle Science Lab visit - 06/20/25
Seattle Science Lab joined us in the lab for a hands-on Strawberry & Blueberry DNA Extraction and tour. In our hour-long workshop we learned about what DNA is and where it can be found in cells, and also compared human DNA traits to strawberries! In exploring our lab equipment, the students though of how to apply these concepts and skills in their future science classrooms.
It’s Alive! Yeast Experiments at South Shore K-8 - 05/22/23 & 05/30/25
SoundBio Lab joined Ms. Qubain’s afterschool program & 6th grade science classroom for our pilot yeast experiments. The students created “Elephant Toothpaste” by using yeast to reduce hydrogen peroxide, a common disinfectant, into water and air. Then, the students made balloons inflated by yeast breath with “Yeast Air Balloons”! The students fed yeast different types of sugar to speed up its metabolism, which resulted in CO2 being “breathed” out by the yeast, which the students could measure by seeing how quickly the yeast were able to inflate a balloon. The classroom got messy and the children couldn’t contain their excitement in seeing these reactions. We’re glad Ms. Qubian enjoyed the fun and helped out with the massive clean up.
Wedgwood Elementary Science Night 2025 - 05/02/25
We were invited for the 3rd year to this Science Night event! SoundBio Lab taught 40 students a fun and messy experiment called “Strawberry DNA Extraction” at our table for students to learn about genes, chromosomes, and take their own DNA sample home.
Madrona K-8 STEM Night - 04/23/25
For the 3rd year, SoundBio Lab was invited to Madrona K-8 STEM Night! Here, we lead our pilot experiment “Seaweed Water Balloons” with the elementary students to understand algae as an important compound in laboratory science in plate gels found in the cell walls of most brown algae. It can be extracted from seaweeds and is used as a gelling agent (this is similar to agar, which is extracted from red algae). In the hands-on experiment, they created their own water balloons - gels by mixing together sodium alginate, calcium lactate, and water.
John Rogers Elementary School STEM Fair - 04/03/25
For the 2nd year, SoundBio Lab was invited to join this STEM Fair event! One station was arts and crafts where the students made models and drawings of plants and animal cells and discussed their basic structures. The second station was the Strawberry DNA Extraction where the students conducted a experiment to see inside of a strawberry cell and discussed concepts of DNA.
DNA Demo Day at South Shore K-8 - 03/14/25
UW Riverways invited SoundBio Lab to teach in Ms. Qubain’s classroom to lead our DNA workshop with her students. 5 classes of middle school students learned about DNA, chromosomes, and cells in two demonstrations through Bio-Art candy and Strawberry DNA Extraction.
STEM Seminars at Big Picture School - 11/18/24, 12/02/24, 12/09/24, 12/16/24
Big Picture School in Burien, WA hosted seminars to allow wider learning experiences by local professionals, organizations, and businesses to provide to both their middle and high school students. SoundBio Lab taught several 1-hour sessions to middle school students on how to operate pipettes to make art, how to extract DNA from strawberries, how to isolate cultures on agar plates, and finally, how to build a paper microscope to explore the microscopic world.
Bio-art at South Shore K-8 - 11/19/24
SoundBio Lab partnered with the UW Riverways for an outreach event at South Shore K-8 in Rainier Beach in the 6th and 8th grade science classes of Ms. Qubain. Over the course of 5 class periods, SoundBio led over 80 students in interactive, hands-on activities related to bio-art. The event featured a gallery walk, featuring paintings by bio-artist Lucy Kim, a showcase of a glow-in-the-dark petunia from Light Bio, and a 3D-printed model of a de novo designed fluorescent protein, generated by the Nobel Prize winning Baker Lab at the University of Washington. Finally, the students made their own bio-inspired artworks in a “Painting with Bacteria” activity using engineered E. coli. The non-pathogenic, human-friendly E. coli used in this activity has been engineered to fluoresce with different colors, so it can be used as a type of paint to create living art with.
U District Street Fair - 05/18/24 & 05/19/24
Over the course of two days, SoundBio Lab had our booth in the kids section of this event where we taught hundreds of young scientists age appropriate skills and a fun experiment. Here, they learned how to pipette, extract DNA with our “Strawberry DNA Extraction”, and use art to recreate biological structures.
Wedgwood & Madrona STEAM Nights - 03/20/24 & 04/26/24
At the science fair nights, students came to our table to learn about what DNA is and what scientists do with it with our hands-on experiment Strawberry DNA Extraction. At the same time, they had fun mushing up strawberries and extracting visible blobs of DNA from that they got to take home in a tube.
