Let's Discover Science Event at University of Alberta

Four student volunteers attended the Let’s Discover Science event held at the University of Alberta on September 22^nd, 2018. Despite the snowy weather, this event was well attended by children and parents interested in participating in science-oriented activities.

For the Host Parasite Interactions table, we had several jars containing parasite specimens and examples of some interesting life cycles. For the interactive activity, we initially asked the children if they had any idea what a parasite was. If not, we explained what they were and then walked them through each specimen on the table. The most popular specimens seemed to be the moose ear that was covered in ticks, a human tape worm, and the intestine of a fish with a very heavy tapeworm infection. We asked all of the participants to guess the number of human tapeworms present in the jar, and they were usually shocked when we revealed that it was only one worm. Finally, we talked about one or more of the life cycles – of which the most popular was the parasite that creates zombie ants.

We were able to answer questions from both children and their parents and encouraged questions from our participants. We were also excited to hear that many children stopping by our table loved science and wanted to eventually become scientists. Overall, this was an enjoyable event that allowed us to inform children about parasites in a fun, casual environment.