Student Outreach

On Friday, April 12th, BGA partnered with the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) to host a behind-the-scenes tour at Edward Life Sciences’ Irvine headquarters. This event provided undergraduate and graduate students with a firsthand look at the inner workings of a leading medical device company. Attendees witnessed a simulated mitral valve repair using the PASCAL Precision system on a porcine heart model, providing valuable insight into real-world surgical procedures.  The highlight was a visit to Edward Life Sciences’ state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, where participants observed the intricate process of creating life saving heart valves.  This visit not only showcased innovative technologies but also instilled a deep appreciation for the dedication that goes into improving countless lives through medical advancements.

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The combined LA Maker Faire and City of STEM event is a day tailor made for young scientists, makers, engineers, creators, and explorers to learn about real-world, hands-on science. For our first year at this event, we helped students visualize photosynthesis through a hands-on experiment using spinach leaves that produced oxygen and floated when exposed to sunlight. We at BGA felt that it was important to think back to how we were inspired by science and pay that sense of wonder and discovery forward. Oftentimes, grad students, especially those in STEM, become too busy and absorbed in their research to remember to give back to the community. It’s important to remember that science can’t be taught in a vacuum, not for grade school students nor for grad students either. 

On April 25th, BGA attended the Roybal-Allard Elementary College and Career Fair, a majority hispanic elementary school in Huntington Park. We were one of only a dozen organizations that participated in this event, with others including firefighters and other local organizations. Over the course of the afternoon, teachers took their classrooms around the fair. We talked to a whole host of students from kindergarten to 5th grade. While the younger students seemed to enjoy looking at the pretty pictures, the older students really seemed to be enthralled with the science. The students had so many questions: “Is that mouse really glow-in-the-dark? How do you see out of a prosthetic eye? Could I actually become Spiderman in real life?” One student in particular, Joshua, had an unending slew of questions after I spoke about my research in gene therapy. We ended up really getting into the weeds on how I packed my gene therapy and what the potential of the research was. After the students were dismissed and the parents showed up, Joshua and over a dozen other students came back to try to exhaust their inexhaustible questions. These students absolutely loved science, but you could tell that almost none of them knew anyone in science or engineering. We at BGA feel that it is our responsibility to provide access to science and engineering resources to all who are interested and we feel that we made a small but significant contribution to this mission through our attendance at this fair.