Tiny Safari: Microbe Walk & Plate Viewing

Microbes live all around us but have you ever seen the ones that live in your local park? Join us at Hunter’s Point Park Conservancy’s Queens Landing Boathouse to learn more about the bacteria and fungi living in the park environment and how they could be sampled as we take a leisurely walk through the park. After the walk participants will have a chance to view examples of colonies formed on agar from the park under a stereo-microscope and can play with agar plates and samples taken from the park during the walk. Those plates will then be incubated at the local community biology lab, Biotech Without Borders, and photographs will be distributed after growth occurs in a couple weeks.

Danny Chan (he/they) is a microbiologist and community organizer who is passionate about frugal and open science. After various experiences as a lab technician he obtained his M.Sc during the course of a PhD in infectious disease microbiology. He then worked as a fact-checker for pharmaceutical ads and as an instructor in informal science spaces. In 2021 he was a Global Community Biosummit Fellow and in 2023 he was a Open Life Science Fellow. Danny is excited to teach folks hands-on lessons about the possibilities of building more just and equitable technologies through understanding and respecting microbial life. He is a member of the local community biology lab in Long Island City: Biotech Without Borders.

We will meet at the Queens Landing Boathouse & Environmental Center and then go onn a brief walk through the park.

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Host or Publisher Hunters Point Parks Conservancy