STEAM Expo Days

Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, Over 21 years only

Use magnetic marbles representing protons and neutrons to model a nucleus, then smash it to pieces just like scientists at MSU’s Facility for Rare Isotope Beams! FRIB is a world-leading laboratory for creating and studying rare isotopes that don’t exist on Earth. This is your chance to create exotic nuclei and discover more about FRIB research.

Learn more about A Smashing Time with Nuclei

Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, Over 21 years only

Have you ever wondered how social media platforms decide who to recommend as your friend? Or how AI models can be used to forecast the future? All prediction algorithms in AI have some inherent bias. The algorithms need bias to be able to generalize to previously unseen situations, but often bias is seen as a problem that causes algorithms to make mistakes. Here we explore different types of bias and how they can impact scenarios differently. Participants can talk with researchers and learn about the benefits and drawbacks of bias through hands-on demonstrations.

Learn more about Algorithmic Bias in Artificial Intelligence

Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, Over 21 years only

We have a lot of water in the world but very little of it is safe to drink. Stop by our booth and find out how you can protect water resources around you, in your watershed, in Michigan’s environment, and beyond! We will have a water trivia game, crafts, and a visually dazzling groundwater model showing how the water cycle connects the water above ground that we can see to the water below ground that we cannot see. We will use dyes to show how pollution moves through the water cycle and offer tips on how you can be a water steward.

Learn more about All Water is Connected and Ours to Protect

Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, Over 21 years only

Fenner Nature Center's Aquatic Adventures program teaches students about wetland ecology through hands-on exploration of aquatic animal and plant life. Aided with collection and identification tools, students can explore the world of aquatic macro-invertebrates developing in different life stages within the environment, investigate adaptations that help wetland plants survive in these unique conditions, and come face-to-face with some cold-blooded residents that call wetland ecosystems home.

Learn more about Aquatic Adventures

Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, Over 21 years only

Learn the science and technology behind measuring human movement and how it is applied in a wide variety of settings, from the study of elite athletes to people with movement disorders. Hands-on activities include using different technologies to measure your own movement.

Learn more about Are You the Next Olympic Athlete? Measuring Movement in Health and Disease

Appropriate for: Kindergarten and Pre-K, Elementary school age, Middle school age

The best kind of science experiment is one that you can do all by yourself. So drop by and learn from YouTuber Tommy Technetium how you can perform several experiments at home with adult help. You can learn how to explore the science of bubbles, butterflies, batteries, and much more!

Learn more about At-Home Science with Tommy Technetium

Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, Over 21 years only

We will offer short, 15-minute planetarium shows every 30 minutes. Come see what's up in the night sky.

Learn more about Abrams Planetarium Shows

Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, Over 21 years only

What determines which foods taste good and which taste bad? How does taste influence what we eat? Join the Johnson Lab as we explore the neuroscience of taste perception!

Learn more about A Taste of Neuroscience

Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, Over 21 years only

We use the word “taste” to talk about the foods we eat: “that tastes amazing/gross/like salami.” But really, our experience of food flavor comes from much more than taste! Flavor perception is the combined detection of molecules by three sensory systems: taste, smell, and chemesthesis. Through a tasty demo, visitors will learn about “retronasal olfaction” – the smelling we do while chewing food – and how much it contributes to flavor. Next, visitors can go “flavor tripping” by eating berries that contain a molecule, miraculin, that binds very strongly to our sweet taste receptors, making sour foods eaten shortly afterward taste sweet.

Learn more about All in Favor of Good Flavor!

Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, Over 21 years only

Have you heard the AI bot creepily ‘singing’ the song ‘Jolene’? Artificial intelligence initially arose to automate mundane tasks and computations, but lately it’s been making waves in creative spheres. This brings up questions about intellectual property, ethical use of technology, bias in algorithms, and the nature of creativity itself. The MSU Museum CoLab Studio invites you to join us as we explore text-to-sound generative AI, learn how to use the algorithms, and grapple with the future implications of this technology. This hands-on workshop will be led by Mark Sullivan, a practicing photographer, composer, and the creative director of the Museum CoLab Studio.

Learn more about AI Sonic Art Workshop