Good books broaden our horizons and inspire new conversations, no matter where we are! Join the Florida Museum of Natural History and Alachua County Library District for the National Endowment for the Arts Big Read, a series of events building community while lifting the voices of women in science!
Girls Do Science brought innovative experiments and demonstrations curated by current scientists for future scientists to your homes and classrooms. This program was created to bring science to all curious minds while also highlighting the women in the science from the Big Read books, including Swimming with Sharks, Evelyn the Adventurous Entomologist and Finding Wonders.
Activity Book
Download the Girls Do Science FREE activity book to find projects for all ages with targeted pages for Elementary, Middle and High School students. Each activity was designed by a scientist and includes background information, material lists, step-by-step instructions and bonus resources to keep learning!
Mixed in you’ll find coloring pages illustrated by Wayfaring Painter artist, Brynna Bat Palmer!
Many young scientists and their families joined us on a Zoom on Feb. 13 to learn about the challenges and opportunities of a career in scientific fields. Florida Museum and University of Florida scientists shared their work and answered questions. Watch the recording now:
This video was recorded at the live Zoom on Feb. 13, 2021.
Jade Salamone, Conservation Education Curator at the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo.
Learn how zoos contribute to wildlife conservation and bring animals back from the brink of extinction.
Maria Beatriz Cortez, Ph.D Candidate at the Soltis Lab.
Learn more about Spanish moss, which is neither Spanish, nor a moss. What is this mysterious being that drapes our beloved oak trees?
Tyler Bowling, Manager of the Florida Program for Shark Research.
Hear about shark research with jaws, tags and other props! Learn about International Shark Attack File investigations and shark movement in the state of Florida
Fiona Harris, Graduate Researcher at UF’s Department of Microbiology & Cell Science.
Use microscopes and staining techniques to compare the size and shape of lake microorganisms, bacterial cells, and human cells. Discover how these microorganisms impact your life and the life of larger organisms around you.
More Videos
To learn more about a handful of the activities from the book or just hear from participating scientists, check out these videos about archaeology, zoology, botany and microbiology!
Florida’s early Native people decorated pottery with tools they found or made from nature. Sometimes they used what was left over after cooking, like clam shells, animal bones and corncobs. Archaeologists like Lindsay Bloch use the ancient pottery that they find to learn more about what people who made it ate. What is left over after you’ve eaten a meal? Can it be used as a pottery tool, to draw lines, make shapes or a pattern in clay as a record of what you eat?
Pressing plants is important for botanists to study plants over time and over a large area. It can be a fun way to learn more about plants or create interesting and natural art pieces! Build a mini plant press with Allison Bordini using items you might have at home to start your own herbarium, or plant collection.
The Mint Family (Lamiaceae) is an incredibly diverse group of over 7,000 different species found around the world. One thing the mints have in common is they make fragrant oils that can attract a pollinator or deter an herbivore. While these oils and chemicals may be gross to some herbivores, we humans LOVE them. We’ve used them for thousands of years in cooking, perfumes, and even in mummification in ancient Egypt.
Today, you will be making Mint Play Dough with Allison Bordini! By tearing and rubbing the leaves of your favorite mint plant and adding them to homemade play dough, we are mimicking the biting and chewing of an herbivore, causing the leaves to produce and release more oils. When we add them to our play dough, those oil will make the play dough smell AMAZING!
Environmental and behavioral enrichments, also known as animal enrichments, are an important tool used to help provide the best care for the animal ambassadors that reside at zoos and aquariums. Animal enrichment is a process used to maintain or improve the mental or physical health of animals that are under human care. The goals are to encourage the animals to perform natural behaviors and to give the animals a form of control and choice over their environment. Learn from the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo’s Daniel Dunn about how enrichment works!
All living organisms are made up of the basic units of life, called cells. Contained within each cell is DNA, which is the genetic information that codes for the way each living thing looks and functions. Just like you have DNA, strawberries do too! In this activity, you will learn from Mylie Siegel from the American Society for Microbiology University of Florida Student Chapter how to isolate the genetic information from a strawberry to look at large clusters of its DNA. Though DNA is not typically visible to the naked eye, strawberries have lots of DNA, so it is much easier to see when it is extracted as a group.
Activity Book