The Carlmont Biomedical Engineering (Biomed) Club aims to share its love of science and offers fun, hands-on experiments that pique interest and help get a head start inside the classroom.
The club was founded by Jonathan Park, Jaelyn Chow, June Wakefield, and Vania Pala, a group of juniors who came together to discuss their plans for the future. Ultimately, they decided to start a club because they were all interested in pursuing biomedical engineering.
The idea arose because they realized no science clubs focused on a specific career or interactive experiments, so they decided to fill that gap by creating the club.
The club aims to teach others about biomedical engineering, which uses molecular and engineered technology to improve patient care. Since this is a complex subject, the club uses smaller experiments to help demonstrate different aspects of the field.
They create experiments that explore biology, chemistry, and engineering, giving members a well-rounded view of biomedical engineering.
The club meets every other Monday and offers small educational activities, sometimes involving candy. At most meetings, the leaders bring food to share, ensuring they feed those who spend their lunch hour participating in the club.
“The labs are fun, and we get free food at the end,” said Athena Vernon, a junior at Carlmont and a member of the club.
So far, the club has done several fun activities, such as the strawberry DNA experiment, cabbage juice litmus test, ice cream lab, candy DNA models, lemon volcano experiment, and origami hand-grippers.
“Sometimes, we enter a lab unsure if the experiment will work like expected. This is a challenge, but it can often be rewarding because, just like our club participants, we are equally curious to see how the results will turn out,” Wakefield said.
In their most recent meeting, they did a Skittles experiment. Each member was given a plate with Skittles arranged around the edges. Wakefield then walked around with a kettle of warm water. She poured the water onto the plates, and everyone watched as the colors from the Skittles blended into the water.
“It’s fun to see students excited about the subject that I teach, and I want to help support students. Especially those who are driven and already know that they want to go into biomedical engineering or something related to it,” said Jennifer O’Hara, the club’s advisor.
