The Lego Education Spike Prime is a great educational STEAM tool that does this by combining the love of building Legos with easy-to-use program coding based on Scratch known as Spike Prime. This educational tool is used to teach kids of all ages where it teaches the fundamental importance of coding and engineering. With Lego Education Spike Prime students are able to be creative as possible in order to solve problems and there are endless possibilities of using this tool to your liking.

 Biohacking is the use of living systems and biological material through biotechnology to create art. It can be used as a great educational tool that teaches students of all age’s scientific concepts such as bioengineering. During this class lesson we work with the Biohacking Canvas Kit on creating living paintings. Our objective was to learn about cells such as bacteria cells, how to grow them efficiently, and how we can use them as paint to create living art on a petri dish. We were able to make bio-art by using 3 colorful, friendly bacteria that gave colors such as purple, magenta (fluorescent)., and cyan “invisible ink” (fluorescent). With a sterilized cotton swab, we take a sample of any of these bacteria and smear it onto a sterilized agar petri dish to draw our image of choice. My image of choice was a ghost on the petri dish. After finishing the drawing, we will then incubate the petri dish for 24 hours. Once the bacteria have grown in the petri dish you can use natural light and UV light to see the different colors of your bioart. As a STEAM educator I view this as a fun and creative educational tool to get students of all ages interested in bioengineering and biotechnology. There are many endless possibilities that educators can use this tool to teach students STEAM and can be easily modified to meet learning standards.

The second biohacking we have done was to use a living organism known as Mycelium which is a root-like structure of a fungus consisting of a mass of branching, Mycleium is special where when it dries it can form an incredibly strong material that is not only water-resistant, but also fire and mold-resistant. Not only is it sturdy, resilient and bulletproof, but it can withstand extreme temperatures, and when it’s lifetime of use is over, the material can be easily composted. Therefore, Mycelium can be used to sculpture and create beautiful pieces of art known as bioart. Some ways people have used Mycelium is to build houses, making clothing, make shoes, and furniture. During this class lesson, we were given the chance to create a sculpture of our choice using the Mycelium. We made an object of our choice, in this case mine was a square tin foil and put it in a plastic container. I filled it up with dry Mycelium and sealed it up. I let it grow for a few days, then remove the object carefully in order to bake it in the oven to harden the mycelium sculpture. As a STEAM educator, I view this as a fun and creative educational tool to get students of all ages interested in using living organism to understand and get interested in complex living systems. It also sparks creativity to students, where they can use mycelium in multiple ways to design bioart or to even solve problems. There are many endless possibilities that educators can use this tool to teach students STEAM and can be easily modified to meet learning standards.