Volunteers can fulfil a wide variety of tasks at the Lab, mainly focused on two different areas: Laboratory and Education. You may volunteer in both areas, or you may volunteer in one area. You may also be cross-trained into one area or another depending on personal interest. Descriptions are provided merely to give more details. Education: The Citizen Science Lab offers a wide range of educational opportunities for youth in Pittsburgh. These include programs occurring within the Laboratory in South Hills, offsite at local schools and community organizations, and even some occurring virtually to reach youth in the comfort of their own homes. Programs include our series of month-long weekly homeschool classes, multi-year initiatives, birthday parties, grant-funded opportunities for underserved youth, and individual programs for groups of any type. Topics cover a wide range of STEM disciplines from physics and microbiology to engineering and technology. All lessons are intended to be experiential and hands-on for our students. Laboratory: We house a wide variety of professional grade lab equipment to be used for our programs, and by independent researchers who otherwise might not have access to a laboratory space. In order to support our educational programming, this often requires inventorying, cleaning, and maintaining this equipment for use. This also requires the creation of bacterial cultures, agar plates, chemical solutions, and other laboratory materials for use in programming. Commonly used laboratory equipment include: Autoclave, Ultra-Low Temperature Freezer, Centrifuge, Water Baths, Thermocycler, DNA Sequencer, Incubator, Hot Plate, Fume Hood, Aerial Drone, 3D Printer, and more.
If you are interested and wish to become a volunteer for this need click on the "Sign Up" radio button on the upper right corner of this screen and you will be notified by a member of the organization’s volunteer team or coordinator.