Science Gingerbread

One of the key components of effective science communication is that it provokes curiosity. These gingerbreads are meant to do just that.

This 2016 project investigated how the sterile scientific world of a microbiology science lab could be represented with delicious and lively candies and gingerbread. The House features many of the insects found across houses in the USA (based on the DNA science of Dr. Madden’s 2016 Molecular Ecology paper). The petri dishes and 96-well plates represent some of the common tools in a lab at actual scale. The gingerbread lab bench replicates the bench Dr. Madden used in graduate school, including a DNA gel box, gloves, lab notebook, and bunsen burner.

Impact

• The Gingerbread Lab Bench was featured in a Forbes article in 2019.
• This project led to a consulting project with Thermo Fischer Scientific in 2019.

Gallery of Images