Some grown-ups will have a chance for science fair nostalgia this evening in St. Paul. Dual Citizen Brewing Company is hosting an adult science fair. It’s the brainchild of events manager Caitlin Searls, who’s with me in the studio. Thanks for being here, Caitlin.
CAITLIN SEARLS: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited.
NINA MOINI: It’s very exciting. And tonight’s event is also a fundraiser for Starbase Minnesota, a program that educates fifth graders in the Twin Cities and Duluth about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, STEM. And Melanie Peters is Executive Director of Starbase Minnesota. Thanks for being with us as well, Melanie.
MENALINIE PETERS: Hello. Thank you for having me.
NINA MOINI: When I was talking about that trifold poster, I was flashing back to telling your parents you have something due the next day. [LAUGHS] And I see, Melanie, you have a little photo. Did you just hold up a little photo of yourself?
MENALINIE PETERS: So this is where it stemmed from. This is Caitlin at eight years old doing a science fair project on babies. I ran into my second-grade teacher, and she had a student teacher with her. And she tapped the student teacher and said, this is the baby girl from 1998. So apparently, at Sunnyside Elementary, I’m famous for this science fair project, and that’s where this whole thing came from.
NINA MOINI: I love that. Well, I mean, to be fair, Melanie– or, I mean, Caitlin, this is something that people recall and they have a lot of nostalgia around. And so what made you think, I got to do this, this will be fun?
CAITLIN SEARLS: You said the word “nostalgia.” So the creative director at Dual Citizen, his name is Matt Irwin. Him and I will just sit and just come up with silly ideas. And we got on the topic of nostalgia. And you see things like drunk spelling bees and goofy things like that. You know what I mean?
And so we were kind of like, well, what’s something we could do that we haven’t seen other people do? And I had just run into my second-grade teacher, and I was like, what if we do a grown-up science fair and make them do the embarrassing trifold? My husband is working on his last night with construction paper and glitter glue, and they have to give you a minute of content and then get judged on it.
NINA MOINI: Yeah. Melanie, what did you think about this idea, and were you excited to get Starbase involved?
MENALINIE PETERS: Oh, I love the idea. I love that Caitlin and everyone at Dual Citizen thought about just bringing the adult joy for science back into an event that they’re doing at their location. And we received a phone call out of the blue from Caitlin. I’m not even sure how she found Starbase. I believe it was an internet search.
NINA MOINI: Google.
MENALINIE PETERS: And we might have been the first STEM organization to pop up. And, yeah, we said yes right away. This is exactly what– the kind of excitement that we like to build in students. It will be fun to see the excitement built in adults tonight.
NINA MOINI: Yeah. And, Caitlin, I feel like you all do a good job at Dual Citizen of being in community and then thinking outside the box. So this is tonight. Can people still enter? That would be a really last minute.
CAITLIN SEARLS: Do it. The more chaotic, the better. Do it.
NINA MOINI: Tell us how it’s going to work.
CAITLIN SEARLS: So everyone’s going to be loading in at 5 o’clock with their trifolds. And I know couple people are bringing their laptops. I know all the entries, so it’s going to be pretty exciting. We’ll start the judging, and people can walk around and listen to people’s one minute of information. And then at 7:30, we will announce winners.
NINA MOINI: Are there judges? Who the judges?
CAITLIN SEARLS: Oh, so Melanie can talk about that because she’s providing most of them. But one of them is your very own Mandy, one of your meteorologists.
NINA MOINI: Mandy Thalhuber. Oh, I trust her. I trust her.
CAITLIN SEARLS: I slid into her DMs after I called Melanie and said, hey, do you want to come judge a science fair? And I’ve never been responded to so fast in my life. She’s like, yes, absolutely.
NINA MOINI: I didn’t know that. That’s amazing. Shout out to our own Mandy Thalhuber. That’ll be a lot of fun. I feel like, Melanie, when we’re talking about STEM, sometimes it’s like the conversation is just like, we need to get people interested, and nobody’s interested. But a lot of people are interested. I mean, what do you see when you’re interacting with students?
MENALINIE PETERS: There’s a lot of joy and enthusiasm around STEM. Students love it. It’s one of their favorite things that they get to do, whether it’s at Starbase or in their own schools and communities.
With Starbase, we are a five-day on-site program, and we serve about $7,000 students a year at on-site facilities and then another 35,000 through STEM kits that we send out. But yeah, the enthusiasm is there.
I think what we want to do is continue to build on that enthusiasm. I think that pathway from being an excited fifth grader to an adult that’s engaged in STEM industry needs to just be strengthened. And it’s events like this that could help strengthen that. Seeing that there’s still joy and fun in STEM, and then linking that to future STEM careers is also what we’re trying to do.
NINA MOINI: And so, Melanie, who are the other judges? Are they students?
MENALINIE PETERS: No, they’re not students. We have two science teachers who are going to be judging. So one of them, she is a science teacher at a middle school in a metro area school district.
And then the other– one of the other judges is a teacher that brings his students to Starbase every year. And his students were just here last week. And he is very, very excited to judge this event. And then also we have a real-world scientist engineer coming in to judge, one of our–
NINA MOINI: Cool.
CAITLIN SEARLS: –board members, Belinda Cordina with Ecolab. She’s also coming in and judging tonight.
NINA MOINI: Cool. Melanie, are there any parts of STEM– like something that is under the STEM umbrella that might surprise people?
MENALINIE PETERS: Yes. One of the things under the STEM umbrella are skilled technical workers. So welders, mechanics, even things that– different trades that require STEM, like electricians, those are some of the highest-need STEM careers and also some of the great opportunities.
So a lot of the careers in the STEM trades require just a two-year degree or an apprenticeship. And then they lead to very well-paying and much, much needed careers. And there’s a strong demand for those kinds of careers in Minnesota. So that’s one of the things we’re trying to show to our students, is, what are all the different stem trades that you could engage in as well?
NINA MOINI: So, Melanie, before– we’re getting ready to wrap up. But we do want you to give folks an idea of, what makes a good project? You don’t have to give away too much. But what are the judges going to be looking for? What’s going to make this great? I don’t really what an electric potato is, but I’m hearing about that one. And then no volcanoes.
CAITLIN SEARLS: You said no volcanoes.
NINA MOINI: Yeah, nothing too messy. I’m like, I must have blocked these out. But, Melanie, what makes it great?
MENALINIE PETERS: Well, we’ve developed a really fun rubric to judge the science fair tonight. But I think one of the things that makes science fair projects great is creativity with the question. I don’t think that we often stress enough how important creativity is to science.
So we’re really looking for, who’s answering the most unique question with their experiment? We do have a Mad Scientist Award tonight, where we’re looking for the science project that’s really pushing the envelope and pushing that creativity button. So, yeah, I think we’re really looking for creativity.
NINA MOINI: So, Caitlin, there’s no box, or there’s no parameters, or what exactly– if people are like, I’m going to show up tonight, I’m going to get my trifold, what’s the rules, if there are any?
CAITLIN SEARLS: I mean, it still had to be kid friendly. But I think it’s really– for me, the reason I wanted to do this is I have so many friends that are in science fields, but they have a niche thing that they nerd out about. For me, it was an opportunity for someone to talk about what they’re really passionate about.
Like, I have a girlfriend named Katie who just loves rocks, and she can tell you about all sorts of things with rocks, but that’s not what she does in her full time, but she’s super passionate about it. So that’s what I’m excited to hear about, is the things that make people excited and they want to talk about it in science spaces.
NINA MOINI: Absolutely. That’s such a good point. I think sometimes you lose touch with your creativity the older you get maybe or as an adult. And so it’s really nice to just have fun and there’s no pressure and just to get your hands dirty but not too much.
CAITLIN SEARLS: Correct, 100%.
NINA MOINI: And so just lastly, Caitlin, is there a prize?
CAITLIN SEARLS: Yeah, you have to come and find out though–
NINA MOINI: Oh, OK.
CAITLIN SEARLS: –and see.
NINA MOINI: OK, a secret prize.
CAITLIN SEARLS: We have prizes.
NINA MOINI: OK, well, we wish you all the best with the event. And we thank you both so much for coming by. Just a lot of fun. We really appreciate it.
CAITLIN SEARLS: Thank you so much.
NINA MOINI: Congratulations on this. Thank you both. Caitlin Searls is event manager at Dual Citizen Brewing Company in St. Paul, which is going to be hosting this Adult Science Fair today from 5 to 9. So there’s still time to get something together. And Melanie Peters is executive director of the youth science organization Starbase Minnesota.
Source: www.mprnews.org
