UC celebrates science with schoolchildren

Faculty and UC students in geosciences, biology and other departments in UC’s College of Arts and Sciences led students in activities about animals, senses and other topics.

Professor Joshua Gross, who studies animals such as blind cavefish in his lab, led students in an exercise that demonstrated how the sense of taste is tied closely to smell. Associate Professor Takuya Konishi, an expert on ancient marine reptiles called mosasaurs, organized the biology exercises.

Students chewed on a fruit called a miracle berry that affects the taste buds and found that it made sour foods like lemons taste sweet. The children participated in some exercises in the newly renovated Old Chemistry building, which reopened this month after $190 million in renovations.

And in the Geology-Physics Building, students got to explore the Geosciences Museum, which features exhibits on dinosaur fossils and geology. Visitors are greeted at the entrance by a sculpture of a woolly mammoth.

Geosciences Professor Carlton Brett gave the students a tour of the museum, holding up fossils of starfish and the tracks of ancient dinosaurs left in the mud. And under the fossilized skeleton of a giant mosasaur hanging from the ceiling, he led students on a walk through the Earth’s timeline from the Ordovician period through today using examples of its notable animals.