Mapping the Sawkill: Citizen Science Microbial Cultivation Workshop

Together, we’ll learn DIY/DIWO Pure Culture Techniques, cultivate microbial populations, and observe what we grow under the microscope—capturing images and video along the way.

We’ll look for microbes that signal stream health, environmental toxicity, algae blooms, runoff, and other changes in the watershed, comparing samples from different parts of the Sawkill Stream through citizen science.

But we’ll also ask some stranger questions: Do microbes have feelings, families, personalities, or cultures? Can microbes be enriched with music, fine food, mood lighting, or mazes? Do cultures want to be mixed or form co-cultures? What is cognition and consciousness—and what is simply an automated response to environmental cues?

Images and videos from our explorations can become drawings, paintings, poems, or video art. This interpretive art is another form of research and can become part of the Mapping the Sawkill database, where art and biology crossover documents exist alongside scientific data.

Led by Adam Zaretsky, Ph.D., a Wet-Lab Art Practitioner working across ecology, biotechnology, non-human relations, body performance, and gastronomy.