Farmers Market

After attending MAX 2019, we came up with the idea to host a booth at the Laramie Farmers Market, where we would have a short, free activity for people to do and be able to raise awareness about both the bestiary and the other science and outreach going on with the grant. Emily Armitage (Unlicensed) has already reached out to the Downtown Farmers Market, but it might be a good idea to see if we can attend the Undine Farmers Market, as it is held in a larger space and is often less busy.

• Emily Armitage (Unlicensed) follow up with us once you hear back about the Vendor Request form for the downtown market
  • Emily's follow up: after applying for a spot at the Downtown Farmer's Market, they offered us a spot in two of the Farmer's Markets in September. We discussed that the Undine market (Thursday Local Market) might be a better venue as there would be more space and fewer people. 
• Emily Armitage (Unlicensed) get in contact with the Undine market and see what their availability for hosting another booth is
  • Emily's follow up: I contacted the Thursday local market folks and they were very interested in our project. The person I corresponded with, Peggy McCrackin (Market Manager) explained that if our booth had activities geared toward children the ten dollar fee per Market would be waived. I filled out and submitted a vendor application and will update once Peggy gets back to me. 
  • Secondary follow up: Emily Armitage (Unlicensed) reported that they willing to have us pretty much whenever we want to be there. We should shoot for potentially the end of July in order to give us enough time to prep the Winogradsky Column and Bacteria Suncatchers. Erin Bentley will follow up with exact dates after determining how long it will take to get all of this together.
  • Erin Bentley follow up with dates and activity updates
• Naomi Ward has emailed Karen to ask about using her indirect funds for such a purpose–report back after returning from trip
• Erin Bentley look into getting some Microbestiary "swag"–tshirts, koozies, etc. 

Emily Armitage (Unlicensed)'s report and description of activities

Report of attendance at the August 8th Thursday Local Market:

On Thursday, August 8^th, three members of the Microbestiary team (Erin Bentley, Sara Griffith, and Emily Armitage) participated in the Thursday Local Market in Laramie. We facilitated activities that allowed children to build a suncatcher in a petri dish that represented a model of a microbial cell. Kids added differently shaped and colored organelles, and read about them in an accompanying brochure Emily put together that had a brief description of their functions of. Additionally, our booth had a station to build a Winogradsky column in a small mason jar using water and mud from the Laramie River. The type of organism that could be found at each level once the mud in the jar sediments was also detailed in the brochure. We asked parents of children that were involved in the activities to send us a photo of the progress of their Winogradsky column and a photo of their suncatcher hanging in a window so that we can post them on our website.

We had great engagement from the children present at the market throughout our time there. Many parents were interested in the Microbestiary as a whole, asked great questions about our mission, and were happy to allow their children to participate in our outreach activity. We made a connection with a representative from Laramie Soap Company, who is willing to display artwork or posters, and might be open to a collaboration. We also connected with an educator from Laramie High School that asked if we did educational outreach to 9-12th graders, and offered to pass along our information to the science teachers at the high school. We ended up handing out 25 pamphlets, and kids made in total 22 Winogradsky columns and 29 suncatchers.

• Rebecca Austin get the final total for what we owe for using the laser cutter