By: Makenzie Kerr, Outreach Coordinator
Didn’t have a chance to stop by the third annual Art & Science Night? Let me walk you through the fun activities to inspire local artists and students to create a new piece of art.
Participants visited tables filled with hands on science activities. At the first stop, Maggi Brisbin’s lab had dancing plankton under the microscope, beautiful plankton books, and print making.
Next door, the Tampa Bay Surveillance Project had fish ear bones (otoliths) under microscopes to teach artists how to age fish. Fun images from fish collections in Tampa Bay flickered across the screen.
As you turned the corner into the MSL hallway, the Dreux Chappell lab led artists through the process of making phytoplankton out of pipe cleaners, pompoms, and other craft materials. To test if their plankton were successful, artists placed them in water columns to see if they floated near the surface to ‘capture sunlight’.
Down the hall, Teresa Greely, CMS Director of Education & Outreach showed artists preserved fish specimens from the deep sea and local waterways. Artists were introduced to viperfish, frog fish, eels, and more.
The Mya Breitbart lab hosted the last table, where participants used colorful bacteria to paint. Artists dipped paint brushes in colorless media to paint on petri dishes. After 24 hours, the colorful bacteria grew into their beautiful designs.
To continue the fun, there was a lab tour and a talk! If you followed the hallways all the way down, the Center for Ocean Technology showcased their famous glider in a water tank. It bounced up and down in the water to demonstrate what it would do in the water column, taking data along the way.
Senior graphic design students presented their collaborative partnership between the Tampa Bay Surveillance Project. Led by Associate Professor Jenny Yucus, the students shared the brains behind their unified branding system for the project.
To finish up the evening, artists continued their rounds at the tables and talked to researchers about their work. You can see the artwork on display January 23 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Nelson Poynter Library.
