Take your children to work

Here’s your chance to show your child what you and others do at the Institute. Take Our Children to Work Day, when your children also get to learn about science at Caltech, takes place this year on Thursday, April 28. The event is free and open to children of Caltech/JPL community members, in grades 4 through 12.

The day will begin at 10 a.m. and will include tours of laboratories and other work spaces; a pizza lunch; and an athletic activity. The day will include a science crafts component and the screening of a high-definition movie in Beckman Auditorium.

The researchers who will open their laboratory doors to these young visitors include professors Grant Jensen, Julia Kornfield, and Erin Schuman. Visitors to Jensen’s lab will tour an electron microscope facility and view blown-up pictures of bacteria and proteins. Kornfield’s lab tour will include playtime with liquids that are highly elastic and a tutorial on polymer synthesis and the roles these molecules play in the body. At Schuman’s lab, visitors will view a demonstration of equipment that helps scientists image live neurons.

In addition to the tours of these and other labs, workers in the carpentry shop will provide demonstrations of their craft. New this year will be a tour of Throop Pond. Children will see the ways that insects and plants have developed symbiotic relationships and depend on each other to survive.

Detailed information about this year’s program, plus a registration form and a medical release form, is available online at http://cit.hr.caltech.edu/events.htm. Please complete these forms and send them to Susie Clark at 153-84 as soon as possible. Clark can be reached at
ext. 1745. Volunteers are welcome and encouraged to participate.

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