Featured volunteer and educator AND welcome to the new school year!!

Happy September everyone!! The leaves are beginning to change.. our super-hot summer is (maybe?) starting to fade... and this week, students from kindergarten through university are headed back to school! That means that we are in full-swing planning mode, preparing for another exciting and fun year of outreach activities!

The beginning of a new semester means highlighting another one of our fantastic volunteers! Beginning this semester, we will also be featuring some of our dedicated educator partners, to recognize their everyday efforts to make science fun for their students!

Guest post: Moosonee / Moose Factory 2012 Trip!

The following is a guest post written by Jan, one of two University of Guelph Let's Talk Science volunteers to visit the remote communities of Moosonee and Moose Factory in Northern Ontario! Derek and Jan, the Guelph volunteers, were joined by Jeff, a volunteer from the Science Travels program at the University of Ottawa!

Microbes photos from Nottawa

The grade 6s at Nottawa Elementary learned about microbes last week with the help of awesome volunteers Alex, Lesley, and Ramya! The highlight of the activity was inoculating agar plates with various things from around the classroom. If you want to make agar plates at home, check out this earlier post on our blog! 

As a person who works with fungi every day, I have to say that these.... plates.... were.... GROSS!!! :p Enjoy the pictures!

Science Rendezvous: Microbes at the library?!

Science Rendezvous is an annual event that connects scientists with the public to show everyone how fun science can be! This year, Science Rendezvous took place on Saturday, May 12th, and Let's Talk Science volunteers from the University of Guelph performed activities in downtown Guelph (super bubbles and slime!!) and at the main branch of the Guelph Public Library!

At the library, awesome volunteers Jan Edward and Nicole showed kids the cool, friendly, and sometimes scary microbes that play an important role in our lives! The participants had the chance to grow their own microbes, and here are the results! By the way, if you ever want to make your own media at home, check out this earlier post on our blog!

Here are the photos!

The 2012 All Science Challenge

Our second-ever All Science Challenge at the U of G was a tremendous success!! With twice as many kids participating this year, the competition was twice as stiff!! The hard work of all the participants was evident in their amazing answers to their difficult questions, and the creativity in the design challenge amazed parents, teachers, and judges alike! During the lunch period, we all enjoyed an amazing presentation by Wild Ontario, who brought live raptors into the competition room!

In the end, the top two spots went to the two teams from Rockwood PS! Third place went to a team from Kortright Hills PS! Kortright Hills PS also walked away with the Spirit Award (we couldn't say no to tu-tus!).

Check out some of the exciting pictures from our big day! Many more photos, as well as high resolution versions of these pictures, are available upon request!

A team from Rockwood putting their heads together.