GABE Outreach and BETA day

UPenn's Graduate Association of Biological Engineers (GABE) engages in outreach activities to promote STEM research and accessibility in the broader community. Though housed in the Biological Engineering department, GABE actively recruits volunteers from all departments and graduate programs in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and links them to important mentoring, demonstration, and science fair support opportunities. Our aim is to expose students to a diverse palette of research areas and STEM trajectories in addition to highlighting the burgeoning interactions between these disciplines that reflects the highly interdisciplinary STEM research landscape today. 

For over 10 years, GABE has partnered with iPraxis, a local nonprofit organization that connects public and charter middle schools with STEM volunteers to bring real world science into the classroom. The result of this collaboration is our annual event BETA day, which is an opportunity for middle school students from across Philadelphia to visit UPenn to participate in a half-day immersion into interactive STEM demos led by our generous graduate volunteers and faculty. In recent years, BETA day has also grown to systematically include ways for our volunteers to share their unique STEM trajectories to help inspire and nurture the next generation of STEM practitioners. This year Northwood Academy Charter School is the featured middle school.

Homopolar Motor Demo

Alginate Microencapsulation Demo

Enzyme Kinetics Demo

Coding Demo