CLEVELAND — This week, the Curiosity Cube is traveling to a few Cleveland schools to give young students the opportunity to interact with real scientists.
Second grade students are searching for contaminants as they learn about environmental science. It’s one of three experiments they will work on inside the Curiosity Cube.
“They'll be experiencing all sorts of fun science activities with handheld microscopes, VR headsets, and so much more,” said Audra DeMariano, the Curiosity Cube Coordinator for MilliporeSigma.
The Curiosity Cube is a retrofitted shipping container. MilliporeSigma is the global life science company behind the cube. Since they have facilities in Cleveland, they wanted to show off science in their community.
Benjamin Franklin Elementary saw this as another tool to expose students to STEM.
“It's very important to our students to be involved in STEM,” said second grade teacher Destiny Russell. “It's a good experience for them to see kind of what their interests are or what they might want to do in their future.”
“So far, everybody's been very excited about being able to do actual science experiments hands on and meet actual scientists,” stated Zac Cline, a scientist at MilliporeSigma.
The instructors are real MilliporeSigma scientists, who do experiments like this every day. Tracking down germs and what shouldn’t be in our water system.
“This topic is contamination, which the students are working on a lot as we just came through the pandemic. So, all the germs and the disinfecting that we're working on,” said Russell.
And the cube has gone global. This cube travels across the U.S. and Canada while 2 other cubes make their way through Europe.
“Anytime students here in the States are learning about our contamination testing experiments, they're actually learning the same experiments that students in Europe are currently working on as well,” said DeMariano.
Students enter the cube curious and hopefully come away inspired.
“Our goal is just to give students a quick look into all the wonders that science can provide in their day-to-day life,” said DeMariano.
“A lot of smiles and a lot of hands-on work, so they're doing great,” added Russell.
“I was inspired to be a scientist from a very young age and it's exciting to be able to see a lot of kids that may not be able to do this very often and see their face light up about science,” said Cline.
And if you want to check out the Curiosity Cube, it will be open to the public starting Friday, May 19 at the Great Lakes Science Center from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturday, May 20 at Holden Arboretum from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.