On Friday, October 24, AWM joined with the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Club at WPI to co-host a mathematical biology-inspired exhibit for Family STEM Night at the Boys & Girls Club of Worcester, an annual event organized as part of Mass STEM Week.
The AWM/BCB exhibit was built around a DNA-inspired bracelet/keychain activity. For this activity, each of the four nucleotide bases (A, C, T, G) that make up DNA was assigned a color and students were tasked with “spelling out” their name using a code that associated each letter of the alphabet with a three-nucleotides-long codon. Members of AWM and BCB Club worked together on a poster that explained the relationship between the nucleotide bases and DNA and on sample bracelets/keychains during a prep session earlier in the week.
The outreach event was a success! Prof. Andrea Arnold (faculty advisor for both AWM and BCB Club), Aksel Jensen (president of BCB Club), Abigail Drumm (president of AWM), and Derek Drumm (postdoc member of AWM) attended to help students through the beading activity and share about the basics of DNA. Students of all ages engaged with the activity through the whole two hours of Family STEM Night, leaving no dull moments for our AWM/BCB reps. Lots of energy, lots of fun!
