Bioengineering Graduate Society Inspires Youth at San Diego Festival of Science and Engineering 2026

April 23, 2026 - Bright and early on Saturday, March 7th, the Bioengineering Graduate Society (BEGS) and other volunteers set up their booths at the San Diego Festival of Science and Engineering in Petco Park to show local K-12 students the wonders of science and engineering. The energy in the ballpark was buzzing as they prepared for a full day of science, learning, and fun. BEGS and the undergraduate bioengineering society BMES were representing UCSD side by side as the 17,806 attendees passed by throughout the day. 

BEGS volunteers interacting with K-12 students

At the BEGS booth, students started by learning about stem cells and how every cell in your body can trace its lineage back to a stem cell, but eventually differentiated into each cell type that makes you, you! This differentiation process can be driven by the stiffness of the material surrounding the stem cell. For example, a stem cell on stiff material like bone, will also differentiate into a stiff cell type, like a bone cell. A stem cell on a very soft material will also differentiate into a soft cell type, like a brain cell. BEGS then had the students close their eyes and feel different materials, predicting what cell type stem cells would differentiate into if adjacent to that material. After the demo, the students then got to build their own biomaterial scaffold complete with cells, an extracellular matrix, and of course, googly eyes. Some of the students made big pink brains, some made classic red hearts, but most made extremely fibrotic tumors (which are the most fun to make).

The wide variety of activities at the BEGS table at SDFSE 2026

With their biomaterial scaffold in hand, they moved to our next activity where they learned about the electrical activity of the heart. Even kindergartners know that your heart is in your chest and it pumps blood to your body, but most students were stumped when we asked them how the heart pumps. Their eyes widened as they learned about how human hearts use electricity to contract and then expand, and how scientists can measure this electrical activity to see the heartbeat and diagnose medical conditions using a machine called an ECG. They then gave electrical leads to the students and had them attach them to disposable electrodes on both sides of their body to hook them up to our homemade ECG. When they held very still, they saw their heartbeat arise out of the noise on the computer screen in front of them. We explained to them the meaning of the different peaks on the reading, and how the readings changed whenever they moved or spoke. They could feel their heart beat in their chest while seeing it simultaneously on the screen. For the grand finale, BEGS hooked up their homemade ECG to a receipt printer and printed their ECG results on a piece of receipt paper for them to take home. 

BEGS volunteers at SDFSE 2026

With their biomaterial scaffold and ECG results in hand, they explored the other booths at the festival, which included exhibitors like Illumina, Millipore Sigma, Biocom, and many more. BEGS had record attendance for their booth this year from their unique and educational approach to teaching kids about the human body. BEGS cannot wait to go again next year and teach kids new and exciting facts about the human body!