Additionally, several tables will feature live species, including plants from the Beal Botanical Garden, insects from the MSU Bug House, and reptiles presented by the Herpetology Club. Guests can also explore preserved specimen collections, such as the fish collection from the Fisheries and Wildlife Club, the A.J. Cook Arthropod Collection, and the museum’s own vertebrate collection. 

Sponsored by the MSU Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Program and the Abrams Planetarium, which will display a meteorite collection, the event emphasizes curiosity as a fundamental part of an individual's nature.

“Wanting to know more about what you see and hear and smell and think is a part of being human. Getting to be able to encourage and indulge that is something super valuable about engagement with scientists, college campuses and communities, and researchers,” MSU Museum’s CoLab Studio Program Manager Dr. Abbie Stevens said.

The event evolved from the museum’s former Charles Darwin Day event, which centered on the life and work of Darwin and his lasting impact on evolutionary science. Last year, the event was reimagined and rebranded with a Valentine’s Day theme, broadening its scope to include a wider range of scientific fields and departments.

Lacey Bishop-Schouster, current graduate student and program coordinator for this year’s SciCurious, said she values the connection between scientists and the public that SciCurious provides.

“I don't think people have a lot of accessibility to researchers and like chances to actually ask about science and how science is done,” Bishop-Schouster said. “A lot of times they're just told the end products, so I really like events like this where you're able to actually talk to researchers and what they have to say about their science and why it's important to get that kind of exposure.”

SciCurious highlights the power of scientific collaboration in every detail, including its promotional poster. The graphics were developed using an open-source gallery of hand-drawn scientific illustrations sourced from museums and libraries around the world, and the layout itself draws on a style inspired by risograph printing, giving the design a layered, textured feel.

“There's an old type of printer, called the risograph, which would do one color at a time, and then you would run it back in again to another color. They're sort of the overlapping of colors that draws to an older style to get an interesting textural, stylized feel, and make it more grounded in the fact that this is not an event, it's just science." Kristin Philips, digital communications coordinator for the MSU Museum and promotional poster designer, said. "Science is not just a cerebral and digital practice, but science is very real and hands-on activities.” 

SciCurious is set to take place in the MSU Museum’s newly renovated building from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, February 14th. Anyone can attend, and although registration via the museum’s website is encouraged, it’s not required.