On Saturday, June 20th, we hosted our first ever virtual STEAM Tea Party! For this event, we had participants pre-register and delivered kits of materials to them with everything they needed to participate in the activities. On the day, we had families Zoom in and we streamed to Facebook Live. In total we had 63 registrants and over 50 participants on the live event, with participants from Wood Buffalo, Calgary, High River, Sarnia and the GTA!

The kits contained the following materials:

• Sarjesa peppermint tea (2 tea bags)
• Tea cup and saucer (1)
• Tea steeper/tea bag (1)
• Tea stirrer and spoon (2)
• Tea hat/crown (1)
• STEM Stickers (3)
• Butterfly Pea Tea (in test tube)
• Foothills Naturals Nettle Leaf Tea (in test tube)
• Lemon/Lime powder (2)
• Cups (2)
• pH strips (1 pack)
• Mberry tablets (2)
• Colorful marshmallows (~30)
• Toothpicks (~20)
• Sugar cubes (~20)
• Icing (1)

Participants started off with a word from Alexandra Daignault, the founder of Sarjesa Tea, who gave an Indigenous land acknowledgment and spoke about the tea brand she founded in support of Indigenous women and gave insights to some of the Indigenous uses of the ingredients in peppermint tea we were tasting.

Then we had our Wood Buffalo Ambassador Chelsey walk through a craft activity with tea party crown and STEM stickers from The Chemist Tree! The stickers have cute STEM puns that teach about science and math concepts.

Next, Our Vice President Doyin, walked us through color changing tea, a tea that changes color in acids and bases!

Then Amabassador Somto walked us through how mberry tablets can temporarily alter our taste buds, making sour things sweet!!

Ambassador Elizabeth, lead us through a really fun activity, making chemical molecules from colorful marshmallows. The participants made water molecules (H2O) and sugar molecules (C6H12O6)

Cape Breton Ambassador Loree, did a bonus molecule, caffeine, which gave the students a bit of a challenge.

Last but not least, High River Ambassador Gillian showed us how to make different structures from sugar cubes!

We polled the participants afterwards and 16 of the 50 participants responded to the poll. All 16 said that they learned something new and had fun completing the activities. All 16 also said that they would do more science activities at home! For those who couldn’t complete the poll, they gave comments and feedback in the chat.

To see the full recording, go to the Zoom link here: https://zoom.us/rec/share/_P1YcvbprThLf5Hx516Bfrc_A9S1X6a82ykW-PYJyEU2Wxw0fueRIMMwymTFSpk?startTime=1592672618000

Or check out the Facebook Live here: https://www.facebook.com/BrainStemAlliance/videos/733094944168127/

Finally we want to say a big thank you to the RMWB for supporting this event and providing funds so that we could prepare these kits and offer them to everyone at a reduced price. Thank you!