Bugs, Bytes and Books – Geek Girl Con

Spark Science Podcast

Bugs, Bytes and Books

Geek Girl Con

[pleasant ambient music]

Regina Barber Degraaf: Welcome to Spark Science. I’m your host, Regina Barber Degraaf. I’m an astrophysicist, but I’m also a self-proclaimed geek, which is why I love these episodes where we cover Seattle’s own annual Geek Girl Con. At this convention, there are panels of comics, movies and books, with a focus on helping every participant feel like they can be their true selves.

At this convention, there’s a huge area dedicated to science, also known as the DIY Zone, created by Dr. Raychelle Burks who we interviewed in season four. Every year, we have the honor of interviewing a few of the amazing scientists, engineers and mathematicians that run the hands-on booths in the DIY Zone.

In this episode, we interview the Bug Chicks, who fight against gender stereotypes and insect stigma through entertaining the public. We also talk to the creator of children’s books that show how science is in everything. And lastly, we talk with a forensic students who tells us about the realism of CSI. We hope you enjoy the show.

[pleasant ambient music continues]

Welcome to Spark Science. We are here for the fifth year in a row. I’m so excited because we are talking to the Bug Chicks, who were featured on our show I think two years ago. And I’m just excited to be talking to you again. I’m going to let you two introduce yourselves. Then we’re going to get right into science.

Kristie Reddick: Awesome. We are super excited to be here.

Jessica Honaker: Yeah we are!

Kristie Reddick: My name is Kristie Reddick.

Jessica Honaker: I’m Jessica Honaker.

Kristie Reddick: And we are the Bug Chicks. We are entomologists who teach people about the amazing world of insects, spiders, and their relatives, arthropods. And we also use arthropods to talk with young people about managing tricky social dynamics, so we use them to talk about social-emotional learning.

Regina Barber Degraaf: I loved when you were talking about, earlier, about camouflage and how some animals, they’re so camouflaged that maybe you don’t even know they’re there, and

relating that to, you know, adolescence.

Kristie Reddick: Absolutely.

Jessica Honaker: There’s definitely parallels there. One of the ways that we sort of get into it, just sort of to touch on that camouflage aspect of it is, you know, there are situations where, you know, kids are in a group and like, you’ve got to conform to the group in some way, right?

Regina Barber Degraaf: Assimilation.

Jessica Honaker: Yeah exactly.

Kristie Reddick: Right.

Jessica Honaker: But how far do you go and to what end? Arthropods do it because they need protection but why do students do it? Why do we as humans do it?

Kristie Reddick: Sometimes we as humans feel like we need the protection of a group or to not blow our cover and for us, one of the questions that we ask is, “Have you ever blended in so much that you feel like you disappear, and is that a good thing?” Like, when does that become detrimental to you as a student, as a person, as a girl especially? I mean, we were talking about science class earlier, where there is a certain age where the girls in class who were so excited to raise their hand stop raising their hand because they just don’t want to even be looked at.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Right.

Kristie Reddick: And so . . .

Jessica Honaker: Or it’s not cool to be looked at.

Kristie Reddick: Or it’s not cool to be in science or whatever, and so it’s those kind of dynamics that we really want to . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: [Speaking over Kristie.] And they’re getting it from everywhere. They’re getting it from their in group . . .

Kristie Reddick: Yes!

Regina Barber Degraaf: . . . you know, their in group of girls, they’re getting it from outside of that group [others agreeing], they’re getting it from parents, they’re getting it from teachers, they’re getting it from TV and how, you know, smart girls are represented. I mean, even Hermione Granger‒we were talking about Harry Potter just before this and how she’s made fun of for knowing all these things.

Kristie Reddick: Absolutely. She’s not celebrated until much, much later . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: Right.

Kristie Reddick: When she saves the world. [laughter]

Jessica Honaker: Yeah.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Well, she’s Minister of Magic now, if you play Wizards Unite, by the way.

Kristie Reddick: That’s true. Yes, I’m with you on that.

Jessica Honaker: I love it.

Regina Barber Degraaf: I really liked that, because you’re here at Geek Girl Con, and what’s the best way to actually get people interested in science is to make some sort of connection to their own life. And here at Geek Girl Con, I think we’ve been here for many years, I know you’re been here for a few years. We’re really celebrating these identities where they feel like they don’t belong, they feel like they have to assimilate‒not just, you know, gender, but like you know, non-gender conforming, people of color, if you’re all of those things, and it’s just a really great place to kind of say that message. I love it.

Kristie Reddick: Yeah, it’s the perfect place. And Geek Girl Con is a place where everyone gets to feel like they get to self-express exactly as they want to. And maybe they don’t get to do that everywhere else, but this is a place where we get to really celebrate diversity of expression.

Jessica Honaker: Yeah, and I think it really lends itself, when people swing by our booth, if they’re a little freaked out, I think even the environment lends itself to people being able to open themselves up a little bit more to trying some, like . . .

Kristie Reddick: Exactly.

Jessica Honaker: . . . holding animals that they may not necessarily have done elsewhere . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah.

Jessica Honaker: Which I love, just some of the changes that happen in people’s perception.

Kristie Reddick: Even in the 20 minutes that they’re at our booth, where we’re interacting with live animals or showing them animals underneath the microscope, you can see the change in the perception of themselves, others, and the natural world.

Jessica Honaker: Yeah.

Kristie Reddick: And that is, that’s really what we do as the Bug Chicks. Yes, we teach about six legs versus eight legs, but we want to challenge people’s perceptions of who they are and what they think they’re capable of.

Jessica Honaker: It’s got such a far-reaching impact, too. You know, you’ve got that personal development that happens, but also people will learn to understand and care for these animals, maybe more so than they did before. And then that leads to education and conservation. And then we’ve got sort of a more robust personal ecosystem, right, where it’s like not only are you personally developing, but you’re also helping to manage and conserve things outside in your own, like, physical space.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Right. I think it’s‒I think what you’re saying here is making me think of like, going from the individual to community.

Kristie Reddick: Yeah.

Jessica Honaker: Yeah.

Kristie Reddick: Definitely.

Regina Barber Degraaf: And I think that’s, it’s a hard process for us all to go through as human beings, but to actually label that and like highlight it for these students is great.

Kristie Reddick: Right.

Regina Barber Degraaf: How did you get into being The Bug Chicks? And I’m seeing your hats and your like, you got your logos [laughter] and . . .

Kristie Reddick: Yeah. So this is our business. This is our life. And this is sort of who we are.

Jessica Honaker: Yeah. Yeah.

Kristie Reddick: And we met years ago at grad school, and I had already started a little production company. I was not into bugs as a kid. I have a degree in theatre. I changed my life. I wanted to study animals in Africa. I took one class, I had an amazing teacher‒he changed my life. And then I started studying animals for master’s degree where I met Jess, and I asked her to come with me to Kenya to film my work over there, because I study camel spiders. And she came with me, she put her master’s on hold.

Jessica Honaker: That was a hit with my professor [laughing].

Kristie Reddick: Yeah. And about two months in, she was filming me teaching kids and then also collecting camel spiders and she was like, “Where do I sign up for this? Like, this is awesome.”

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah.

Kristie Reddick: And that is kind of the moment where it was it, “Oh, I don’t have to do this by myself. Like, we could do this together!” because we were already having such an amazing time together.

Jessica Honaker: Yeah. And so we were [inaudible] Productions for a while . . .

Kristie Reddick: Yeah.

Jessica Honaker: But there was a professor at the College of Teaching, Learning, and Culture, and he wanted us to make some videos for his students, his pre-service teachers, and so that’s sort of how the Bug Chicks was born . . .

Kristie Reddick: Yeah.

Jessica Honaker: . . . is he was, he wanted us to be, what did he want us . . .

Kristie Reddick: The Bug Ladies.

Jessica Honaker: The Bug Ladies. And we were like, “No, no thanks.”

Regina Barber Degraaf: That sounded like 80-year-old ladies that are like . . .

Kristie Reddick: That’s it. Boom!

Regina Barber Degraaf: . . . in like, a motorcycle and then like they come out . . . well, that would be cool but . . .

Kristie Reddick: Yes, that is cool.

Jessica Honaker: It sounded to me like octogenarian cruise. It just didn’t sound . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: But you could, like, grow into it though. It’s a long career.

Kristie Reddick: It is a long career, but honestly, we’re going to be the Bug Chicks until we’re 99.

Jessica Honaker: And when we’re old enough to actually be octogenarian cruise, then we can be animated and still be the Bug Chicks . . .

Kristie Reddick: Forever.

Jessica Honaker: . . . at the ages we are now. In eternity.

Kristie Reddick: Yeah.

Regina Barber Degraaf: So your name actually is forcing you, it’s like a promise to yourself that we have to be this animated forever.

Kristie Reddick: Yes. Exactly.

Jessica Honaker: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Wow. I do not want to do that to myself [laughter], but more power to you. What do you love about this convention, like, how many years have you been here, what do you do?

Kristie Reddick: This is our fourth year at Geek Girl Con.

Jessica Honaker: Yeah.

Regina Barber Degraaf: This is my fifth.

Kristie Reddick: Yeah. We’ve seen it grow a lot in the last four years, especially the last four years, each year just seems more and more rich, and there’s so much more experience for people to have. I love the costumes, I love that people come into the DIY Science Zone. I honestly‒I mean, we’re a little biased, because we’re in the DIY Science Zone, but we think it’s the coolest part.

Jessica Honaker: Yeah.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah.

Jessica Honaker: Yeah, well, I . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: And it’s right next to where you sign up. It’s like so smart.

Jessica Honaker: Yeah, and it makes science so accessible, you know. I mean, kids make slime and kids make glitter bombs, and they come over to the bug section. And so it’s like a little taste of a bunch of kinds of hands-on science.

Kristie Reddick: They’re making hand cranks and motors and . . .

Jessica Honaker: Yeah. That’s amazing.

Regina Barber Degraaf: I loved that then they were, with their phones, making these little animations of the things that were moving.

Jessica Honaker: Yeah.

Kristie Reddick: Yeah.

Regina Barber Degraaf: It was, it was so great.

Kristie Reddick: Love it. So I think the blend of tech and science is really where we need to go in the future, especially if we’re going to hook into popular culture. And I think that science hooking into the tech and to the gaming, because it is all STEM. All of it is STEM.

Jessica Honaker: Absolutely.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Well everything we do in life, right?

Kristie Reddick: Yeah. Everything is STEM.

Regina Barber Degraaf: How you move, how cars work . . .

Kristie Reddick: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Regina Barber Degraaf: . . . how your phone works you know.

Kristie Reddick: Absolutely.

Regina Barber Degraaf: The food, how it’s produced, you eat . . .

Kristie Reddick: Exactly.

Regina Barber Degraaf: I mean like, plumbing systems.

Kristie Reddick: Every single thing is STEM and science based.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah.

Kristie Reddick: So I think they’ve done a really smart job of connecting that DIY Science Zone, and we are very honored and privileged to be a part of it each year.

Jessica Honaker: Agreed.

Regina Barber Degraaf: You had a very small microscope that was amazing and . . .

Kristie Reddick: You look at all sorts of things underneath the microscope. And I think microscopes are another one of those tools that just create engagement for people.

Jessica Honaker: Agreed.

Regina Barber Degraaf: I didn’t take biology in college, so I think I just looked at a microscope and I don’t remember how long it had been, but I think it was a few months ago. And I was looking at these little worms, what are the‒C. elegans.

Kristie Reddick: Oh yeah!

Regina Barber Degraaf: And my colleague works on them, and my daughter and I are just looking through this microscope, and it’s so strange how much emotion that will give you, right? It’s the amazement of looking through something like that is, it’s life-changing for a lot of these students . . .

Jessica Honaker: Yeah.

Kristie Reddick: It really is.

Jessica Honaker: Agreed.

Regina Barber Degraaf: . . . and a lot of these kids and adults.

Kristie Reddick: It’s life-changing for adults, yeah. A couple of years ago, we were in Guatemala and we were teaching farmers about pesticides and how to use pesticides in a responsible way and we had a fly, a housefly underneath the microscope, and this older gentlemen‒he must’ve been around 80‒came up, and he was not really into our workshop all day. And then I said, “Please, please look in this microscope,” and he looked in . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: And then he was sold.

Kristie Reddick: . . . and he said, “Oh my gosh! It looks like me! Look at the hair. It looks like an old man.” And then he brought everyone over to look at this fly under the microscope, and Jessica and I were holding back tears. I mean it’s this moment where you can see the . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: The wonder.

Kristie Reddick: . . . the power of changing your perspective.

Jessica Honaker: Yeah.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Absolutely. So, I’m going to let you get back to your booth, but before we do, from each of you, if each of you could give our listeners a fun fact about bugs that they might not know.

Kristie Reddick: Cockroaches basically invented the hoodie sweatshirt. So, when you’re looking at the back of a cockroach, you’re looking at the back of the hoodie. That’s the pronotum‒it’s that shield that covers the back of the head. If you turn a cockroach upright so you’re looking kind of at its belly, then you’re looking at its face and it looks like it’s rocking a hoodie sweatshirt.

Regina Barber Degraaf: That is so awesome. That’s one of the best ones we’ve got.

Jessica Honaker: I think I’m gonna talk a little bit about aphids because I love them. So, aphids have two little, I call them tailpipes on the back of their abdomen. They’re called cornicles, and they will actually emit pheromones if there is a predator nearby, where one will sacrifice itself and emit this pheromone that says there’s a predator around, and then all the other aphids will [sound effect] drop off to avoid the predator while the one sacrifices itself.

Regina Barber Degraaf: It just dies.

Jessica Honaker: Well, I mean, it’s eaten by the predator.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Oooh!

Jessica Honaker: So, so yeah, it’s like . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: Got it.

Jessica Honaker: . . . this altruistic . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: Wow.

Jessica Honaker: . . . like group pheromone behavior.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Or, I mean, they get eaten by me. We come from a place that has a lot of berries, you know . . .

Jessica and Kristie: Yeah! Yeah.

Regina Barber Degraaf: . . . and we just eat a lot of aphids just right off the . . .

Kristie Reddick: We really do.

Jessica Honaker: Yeah.

Regina Barber Degraaf: There’s nothing wrong with it.

Kristie Reddick: We do too, yeah. I mean, it’s protein, right?

Regina Barber Degraaf: It is protein. Well, one last thing, I just realized that we do, we also ask our guests about pop culture. And I think, as the Bug Chicks, you already know a lot about negative, you know, what do I want to say, representations of bugs and all that stuff. We can name a few of those. But are there any like, good examples of an entomologist or bugs in media, like TV, movie, comics, books?

Jessica Honaker: Well, I mean there’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, right, where they do all of the biomimicry suits and stuff. I think that’s actually a really positive, awesome representation. I don’t know that I saw anything in those movies where I was like, “Mmm, that makes me uncomfortable.”

Regina Barber Degraaf: It’s probably because of Paul Rudd. Everyone loves him.

Kristie Reddick: Well.

Jessica Honaker: I mean that’s true. He’s the best. [laughter] That is true.

Kristie Reddick: And I think I’m going to go oldie but a goodie‒Charlotte’s Web . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah.

Kristie Reddick: . . . is a real empathy-builder, and I know that that’s not necessarily, like, pop culture but it’s pervasive . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: Well, Charlotte’s Web is pretty pop culture.

Kristie Reddick: Yeah, it’s pervasive, [music enters] and so I think that that is a way, that’s a great empathy-builder for children, and people remember that with fondness even until adulthood.

[pleasant ambient music]

Regina Barber Degraaf: We now move from the DIY Zone at Geek Girl Con to the Exhibiter and Artist floor. We met so many amazing artists and businesses dedicated to making science fun and approachable. Our next interview is with Katherine Stocking-Lopez, who created children’s books that connect all aspects of life to science, technology, engineering, and math.

[music]

Welcome to Spark Science.

Katherine Stocking-Lopez: Thank you.

Regina Barber Degraaf: We are here on the expo floor again, and we’re at a booth called MMM…Monsters. I’m here talking with the creator of STEM books featuring these monsters. And I’m going to let you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your work.

Katherine Stocking-Lopez: Thank you. Well thanks for having me. My name is Katherine Stocking-Lopez and I am the author and illustrator and creator of the MMM…Monsters STEM story and activity books. In my work, I wanted to create a series of books where each one centered around a subject, and parents and guardians and any adult that has a kid in their life could use them as a springboard, kind of answering the big questions in little monster-sized bites.

So like, what is art? The book jumps in, they go through an adventure, they’re in a museum, they’re talking about what is art, why is art, you know, how is art. And then the monsters share their activities at the end, and they’re all using common household materials, so you don’t have to go out and buy anything, which is awesome as a parent. And then you’re learning: How do the disciplines cross over? How is there engineering in art? How is there science in art?

And as that goes through with the series‒I have two right now, one about art, one about food, the next one’s going to be about mechanics‒as you go through, it’s creating kind of a library where you and your geeklets can kind of work together, go through STEAM and STEM and see how everything is connected, and then kind of learn some, you know, little personal emotional stories with the monsters too, just about success and failure and how sometimes just trying is the best way to do things.

Regina Barber Degraaf: So how did this all start? Like, how did…were you like, “I’m going to make a book and I’m going to relate art to science, I’m going to make monsters, I love drawing,” like, how did this all happen?

Katherine Stocking-Lopez: I wish it was that organized.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah.

Katherine Stocking-Lopez: [laughter] I actually went to school for animation. I went Cal State Northridge, studied under some wonderful people like Charles Emblis [sp?], did character design, and then realized that was really, really fun, but it wasn’t everything I wanted to do.

And so after graduating, I became an educator. I was a specialty art teacher, I was a contract teacher, I was a camp counselor. I loved that. I loved being able to bring the art into non-traditional settings. And again, you know, my life was going really well, things were connecting, but it wasn’t everything.

Well, I became a mom, and that was amazing, rocked my world. And I looked at all the three different things‒I had the art, I had the teaching, I had the motherhood, and I went, “You know what, how can I put these together?” And that’s when I looked back on my characters and I

looked back on my interests and I looked back on everything and I went, “I could make educational children’s books.”

And so that’s how I brought the worlds together, and then I wanted to make something that was a little weird, a little quirky, a little out there, and made people learn even if they weren’t realizing it, so.

Regina Barber Degraaf: So walk us through, walk us through maybe your food and science one, because I was just looking at that, and I‒it was beautiful. Tell me a little bit about that for, like listeners . . .

Katherine Stocking-Lopez: Sure. So the food one, Munchie Monsters, some of the activities in the back and some of how we go through the food is looking at food not just as stuff you put in your body, but you realize that there are fractions in baking. You need that math to be able to bake something like a cake. You have the art in making food absolutely beautiful. You have engineering, you have mechanics.

One of the activities in the back is actually using tinfoil to create your own cookie cutters. So you first, you build up that strength, you know, you fold, you’re using origami techniques until you have something that’s strong enough to cut through the pliable dough.

You can make any shape you want. You’re using your visuals, you’re using your engineering. And then you can create a cookie that looks like one of the monsters, your initial, a teacup, anything you want. But you’ve got kids working through not only like, you know, structural strength, but visual perception, then the art, then the baking.

So you’re taking all of these skills and putting them into something really fun‒ because who doesn’t want to bake cookies?‒and getting kids to really think about different ways that they can use these different STEM and STEAM, you know, concepts in everyday life and even have a lot of fun.

Regina Barber Degraaf: So we’ve been asking all the people we’ve been interviewing: Can you give us a fun fact? Like, so, like, a fun science fact . . .

Katherine Stocking-Lopez: Sure.

Regina Barber Degraaf: . . . or like break a misconception that people have or something like . . . OK.

Katherine Stocking-Lopez: So, when you’re making oil paint, you‒a lot of times oil paints were originally derived from natural pigments, so you could grind up stones like lapis lazuli to get really rare colors . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: Wait, what?

Katherine Stocking-Lopez: . . . like lapis lazuli. So a lot of the colors like blue was made from actual gemstones, and they would grind it up and add to a binder and add to an oil and that’s how you would get oil paint.

Regina Barber Degraaf: So, like, the gemstone in Steven Universe . . .

Katherine Stocking-Lopez: Exactly.

Regina Barber Degraaf: . . . is what you’re telling me.

Katherine Stocking-Lopez: Right?

Regina Barber Degraaf: OK. So, tell our listeners one more time the name of that gemstone.

Katherine Stocking-Lopez: Alright, so that gemstone for making blue is lapis lazuli. What’s also cool is some of the colors would come from even rarer sources, like glands of snails would make a really cool purple. And kind of in some non-ethical times they would actually grind up mummies to make a color called mummy brown, until we realized that was not cool and, you know, we could also, it’s kind of a non-renewable source so we did find a way to make a synthetic pigment.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Wow! I mean, yeah . . .

Katherine Stocking-Lopez: Right?

Regina Barber Degraaf: . . . aside from all the moral issues with that . . .

Katherine Stocking-Lopez: Exactly.

Regina Barber Degraaf: . . . we do just run out of mummies.

Katherine Stocking-Lopez: We do just run out of mummies.

Regina Barber Degraaf: You’re not going to have a lot of mummy . . .

Katherine Stocking-Lopez: Constant, you know, locally-sourced, responsible fair trade mummy line, so . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah, not a lot of mummies.

(pleasant ambient music)

This is Spark Science and we’re talking with the volunteers of Geek Girl Con, who are teaching

people about STEM. Our next guest is Vanessa Primer [sp?]. She’s a forensic student and also a volunteer in the DIY Zone, teaching kids about the expanding universe.

(pleasant ambient music)

Vanessa Primer: My name is Vanessa Primer, and I got involved in Geek Girl Con through a college classmate at the college that I was attending a couple of years ago. And the science that I’m involved in is actually cybersecurity, so I’m an information technology student going for my applied bachelor’s in cybersecurity and forensics. I have my digital forensics and investigations degree, and I’m also getting a side degree in homeland security and emergency management.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Tell me more about your investigation degree.

Vanessa Primer: Digital investigations is basically where somebody has been trained to be able to get data out of a digital device. So, for example, have you ever dropped your phone into a water-bearing receptacle?

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yes.

Vanessa Primer: And everybody tells you, “Put it in rice!” And then you still are like, “Uh, yeah, no. My phone is fried.” Let’s say that you had just taken some great pictures of your daughter and they hadn’t had a chance to upload to the Cloud. Well, you’re going to call somebody like me who can actually go into your phone. Even though it appears that it’s dead, the data is still in there, and there ways that we can extract that data. Even though your phone appears to be non-functioning, we can actually get that data out. We can save those, we can salvage those pictures, for example.

Regina Barber Degraaf: That’s awesome.

Vanessa Primer: But it’s not just the data on a phone. It’s the data in a drone, it’s the data in your computer. And some of that is extracting data because an individual has had an accident such as a phone dropping into water.

Another would be you were accused of having material on your computer, either by an employer or by the government. So either you’ve been accused of something criminally or you’ve been accused of something that could be criminal but is also a breach of your contract with your company. One of which is going to put you in jail, one of which could, you know . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: [talking over Vanessa.] Get you fired.

Vanessa Primer: . . . get you fired.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah.

Vanessa Primer: Somebody like me could come in and we could do a digital investigation on that computer and we could find whether or not, in fact, you had those materials on your computer at any point in time, if you were the person who leaked it, for example, from your company, or if in fact you had engaged in criminal activity by possessing certain kinds of pictures, for example.

Regina Barber Degraaf: So are you an employed doing this now? Are you an investigator?

Vanessa Primer: No, but yes.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Oooh!

Vanessa Primer: So let me explain that. I’m still a student.

Regina Barber Degraaf: OK. Here at Geek Girl Con we do many things at once.

Vanessa Primer: Absolutely. I’m a full-time student. I’m still pursuing my education. However, I do take small jobs. I’ve had many friends, family, and just people I don’t even know who’ve been like, “So and so told me to call you because they said that you can . . .”

Regina Barber Degraaf: Ah.

Vanessa Primer: So I actually have a stack of about 15 phones right now‒that’s a big one is phones‒that’s I’m extracting data from . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: Wow!

Vanessa Primer: . . . in order to recover data for different people.

Regina Barber Degraaf: For me, I don’t know, as somebody who‒I mean, we’re here at Geek Girl Con. I love TV, we’ve been watching Veronica Mars . . .

Vanessa Primer: Oh my god, love Veronica Mars!

Regina Barber Degraaf: [laughing]

Vanessa Primer: Love her!

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah. This is where we’re going to geek out. This is the whole point of this convention. But like, I think mystery is something that’s so appealing to many of us.

Vanessa Primer: Oh yes.

Regina Barber Degraaf: But it’s not just, you know human . . . I think it’s, I mean that’s what

science is, right? We’re solving mysteries. But I love how your field of STEM‒science, technology, engineering, and math‒is actually solving mysteries.

Vanessa Primer: Oh, so much! And that’s totally what drew me to it.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah.

Vanessa Primer: And don’t get me wrong. I love math. Three of my favorite teachers in my life, Mrs. Getz [sp?], my geometry teacher at Cascade High School back in the day, Professor Hancher [sp?] the first time I went through college, which was for a culinary degree‒don’t ask, it’s weird.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Oh but, we kind of want to ask.

Vanessa Primer: I used to carve meat. Now I carve data.

Regina Barber Degraaf: You probably still carve meat.

Vanessa Primer: I still carve meat, but my disability is one of the reasons why I’ve switched careers.

Regina Barber Degraaf: So what are you doing here at Geek Girl Con? Tell us a little bit about the DIY Zone, because you said you’ve been there for the last three years.

Vanessa Primer: Yeah. So I started in the DIY Zone almost as an accident in 2017. There had been a freak snow storm someplace back east, and somebody who was an educator didn’t make it. And they saw that I had a dot edu email so they put me in there. I don’t think they realized that I was a student because I’m a non-traditional student. So obviously, I was probably actually older than whoever the teacher was that they had coming in . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: Right.

Vanessa Primer: . . . since so many of them are in their twenties and whatnot and have just basically gotten their degrees and are still really enthusiastic about what they do.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah.

Vanessa Primer: So I got in there and they were all, like, “Oh, where do you teach?” And I’m like, “Oh, yeah, I’m a student.” [laughing] But I really, really loved that first year, and now this is the one place that I most want to be when I’m at Geek Girl Con. There are a lot of fun jobs, like being part of the Response Team would be super, super awesome. But there is just something about connecting with the younger generation and sharing your love of science with them and doing something that’s crafty and creative and just getting excited with them and doing something hands-on.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Well we saw you in your booth‒you were talking about the expanding universe, and you were using the demo of an inflated balloon. And I teach astronomy, so I really, really enjoyed your demo. So can you take our listeners through just your spiel?

Vanessa Primer: Basically, you take a balloon. Get some balloons, get some sharpie markers. That’s all that you need there this project. And so what you’re going to do is you’re going to take your balloon and you’re going to blow it up just a little bit. We’re talking about the size of two to three tennis balls, maybe. I mean, we’re talking very small.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah.

Vanessa Primer: Have the child hold the balloon so that the air is trapped inside of it and that it’s steady. And then they can take those sharpie markers and they draw on it. And basically what you tell them is, “So, when the universe first started, it was a baby universe, you know, and so it was small. Here’s our baby universe. Right after it started forming, the galaxies started to form, so we can make the galaxies on our baby universe.” So you have them draw all over the balloon.

And now, the universe is blowing up, so we’re going to blow the universe, or rather, blow the balloon up so it expands. And the balloon expands just like the universe expanded. And so just like when the universe was young, the galaxies formed, and then as it expanded, so did the galaxies. Well, they’re going to see that on their balloon. So I ask them, “What’s happening to your galaxies on your balloon?” And they’re like, “They’re fading! They’re getting further away!” And they can see this in action every time that they do that, which is really exciting.

Regina Barber Degraaf: I will ask one thing that we ask all of our guests. And since we have your time I’m going to do it. And we’re also at a Geek Girl Con. Can you think of forensics or anything that you’re doing with these phones, or astronomy because you’re helping out with that demo, how has that been portrayed in the media? Good or bad? Can you think of a couple of things that we could talk about.

Vanessa Primer: Well first of all, I’ll tell you I was a NASA Scholar, so that’s probably one of my draws towards the astronomy thing.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah.

Vanessa Primer: I know it’s kind of like, “What, where did that come from? That’s left field.” But . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah.

Vanessa Primer: . . . it’s an interest so it is what it is.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah.

Vanessa Primer: How it’s portrayed in the media: There’s a lot of bad representation out there. There’s a lot of stuff that’s just so out of reach. You’ll watch like the CSI TV shows where they have forensic investigators. Their forensic investigators do everything. They do the actual, like, dead body type forensic stuff as well as the digital, and that’s kind of rare, first of all.

Regina Barber Degraaf: It’s a couple different fields.

Vanessa Primer: Yeah. [Regina laughing] And second of all, they’ll have them have these computers that are just floating in the air and they just swipe the screens in the air, and I’m like, OK, this is a government entity . . .

Regina Barber Degraaf: They don’t have money for that.

Vanessa Primer: . . . that is on a budget. [Regina laughing] Even if some of that tack exists, which some of it does, they don’t have it.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah.

Vanessa Primer: They are poor. They do not have that money. These people are not making a good salary. Oh, and I love how they’re wearing, like, all designer clothes, and I’m like, “OK, yeah, those pants cost more than you made last year.” Because the fact is these are civil servant and they are not making that much money and it is not that glamorous.

Now, if you’re passionate about it, you’re passionate about it. So, I mean, it is what it is.

Regina Barber Degraaf: Yeah.

Vanessa Primer: So I do find that as I’m watching things on TV and in movies, I’m like, “Oh my god that’s inaccurate! Oh my god, that’s inaccurate! And it really bugs me. Then I just settle in and I’m like, “Just enjoy it. It’s fiction, it’s fiction.”

Regina Barber Degraaf: Right. Can you give us a fun fact about forensics, the investigative stuff that you’re doing?

Vanessa Primer: We’re going to straighten out a very big misconception. The word “password” is not a flipping password, people. [Regina laughing] [pleasant instrumental music enters] Please, please, please please, please, for the love of God, stop using the word “password” as your password! [laughing]

[music continues]

We’d like to thank the Bug Chicks and Vanessa Primer for taking time away from their busy DIY

booths to talk to us. If you’d like to learn more about the Bug Chicks, go to their website at thebugchicks.com. Or, you can follow them on Instagram and Twitter. Their handle is @thebugchicks.

We’d also like to thank Katherine Stocking-Lopez for talking to us about her books on the expo floor. To learn more about her books, go to mmmmonsters.com. That’s [spelling out website] m m m m o n s t e r s dot com.

Spark Science is produced in collaboration with KMRE and Western Washington University. Today’s episode was recorded in Seattle, Washington at the Washington State Convention Center during Geek Girl Con 2019.

Our producers are Suzanne Blais, Robert Clark, and myself, Regina Barber Degraaf. Our audio engineers are Zerach Coakley, Julia Thorpe, and Erin Howard, script support by Ariel Shiley.

If you missed any of our show, go to our website, sparksciencenow.com. And if you have a science idea you’re curious about, send us a message on Twitter or Facebook @SparkScienceNow. Thanks for listening to Spark Science.

[music fades out with a final sound effect flourish]