Action Potential Lab

Founder, Lab Director
2013-2022

Action Potential Lab is Toronto's first laboratory and education space dedicated to merging science and art by way of classes, workshops, products, events and social outreach.

Since its opening in 2013, Action Potential Lab (APL) has shaped the Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM) community both locally and across Canada.

Its unique brand of innovative education reached thousands of students and engaged with a multitude of civic initiatives. APL uses a collaborative learning-teaching model and encouraged open inquiry. The mission behind APL is about providing programming that is hands-on, unpretentious, open to various abilities, and tells a story of what cross-disciplinary learning can look like in our daily life.

FACTS & FIGURES

  • Founded and lead Toronto's first art and science laboratory, managing a team totalling 70 staff and volunteers over 10 years

  • Delivered programming for 341 days a year, including successful partnerships with Google, YouTube, CBC, and Vice Media on educational initiatives.

  • Taught over 40,000 students, ranging from preschoolers to adults

  • Hosted an educational event for 1500 students and teachers from the Toronto District School Board as well as municipal leaders, held at The University of Toronto's Convocation Hall

  • Collaborated with 150 schools and educational institutions

  • Presented our educational research at local and international conferences

  • Designed and sold branded merchandise such as t-shirts, tote bags, lab coats, in addition to 8 varieties of subscription-model STEAM Activity Kits for children’s schooling during the pandemic

  • Developed 10 years of our unique STEAM curricula

  • After a decade at the helm of APL, I successfully sold my business in December 2022

PROGRAMS INCLUDED

  • Cosmos & Cocktails events pair astronomers with mixologists to create unique drinks based on lectures. Hear Toronto's top speakers on astronomy topics, taste exclusive drinks, and improve your knowledge and mixology skills. It's a mind-expanding lecture and mixology lesson in one.

  • Molecular Gastronomy is a food science that explores chemical and physical changes in cooking to create endless flavours, textures, foams, gels, spheres, powders, emulsions, and more. This workshop teaches you how to make liquid nitrogen ice cream, dry ice soda pop, sugar-spinning sculptures, and spherification gummies. It turns the kitchen into a fun laboratory for experimenting with food.

  • Ask A Neuroscientist is a workshop led by Dr. Samantha Yammine (Neuroscientists/TikTok star/Canada’s leading Science Communicator), where attendees can ask any questions about brain function and behaviour. She shares favourite facts, the latest research, remaining mysteries and myth-busting. It's for everyone, whether a brain enthusiast or new to science.

  • In this workshop, attendees learn how to screenprint with thermochromic pigment, which changes colour based on temperature. They'll also learn colour theory fundamentals and create wearable designs that blend science and art.

  • Remember those awesome rice necklaces from the 90s? Well, we're bringing them back in full force, only this time, we're replacing inscribed rice pieces with your own DNA. Learn the science behind DNA extractions and then craft your necklace. Wear your genetic information on your neck with pride or give it to that special someone for the holidays. Nothing says “I love you” than gifting someone a necklace with your DNA.

  • Learn about squids and octopuses, fascinating creatures with unique abilities like swimming fast, squirting ink, and unscrewing jars. Dissect whole squids in the workshop and examine their features. Attendees will also learn preservation techniques and take home a mini octopus in a glass vessel. Then, use squid ink as paint to create paintings. Because everyone should get to cross off "painted with squid ink" from their bucket list. *All specimens have been ethically sourced for educational purposes.