Polar Outreach Catalogue

Key aspects of successful science education lie in the ability to capture individual interests, making the information meaningful and conveying different facets of scientific research: the excitement associated with discovery, the necessity of scientific rigor, and the vast field of unanswered questions. Aiming to fulfill those needs, with support from the Virtual Planetary Laboratory (University of Washington) and the collaboration of the Portal to the Public program at the Pacific Science Center (PSC), I developed a hands-on activity on Polar Microbiology and Astrobiology. During the activity the visitor, taking the role of a scientist, is prompted to select ?samples? from polar environments, predict abundances of microorganisms and ?process? the sample to obtain data. ?Samples? exemplified actual differences in microbial abundances, as well as the inherent limitations of exploring the Solar System.