By Jonathan Riggs | Photography by Stephanie Yantz

In the right hands — namely, those of professor of Earth, planetary, and space sciences Jon Aurnou and postdoctoral fellow Jordyn Moscoso — science can be accessible and fun. Take Aurnou’s Simulated Planetary Interiors Laboratory, or SPINLab, which studies large-scale fluid dynamical phenomena that occur in and on planets.

“Jupiter has some of the largest atmospheric flow structures in our solar system. The surface structures that we see are organized into coherent, colorful bands and jets, which are driven by small-scale turbulent messiness in the planet’s interior,” Aurnou says. “We’re looking at how and why. Alternating jets of water don’t just organize themselves in your kitchen sink when you do your dishes, for example — so why don’t planets make messes when they are stirred?”

To get current Bruins as well as K–12 students and teachers excited about using science to explore fluid dynamics questions like these about the atmosphere, ocean and planets, Aurnou and Moscoso spearhead the popular program DIYnamics. It offers instructional videos, materials and do-it-yourself kit options — in multiple sizes, using materials ranging from Legos to turntables, and red food coloring to record players — to give students and educators an opportunity to simulate planetary fluid dynamics at home or in the classroom by building and operating their own rotating tank experiments.

“Our hope for DIYnamics is to create tangible pathways for students to become engaged in climate dynamics,” says Moscoso, who helped found the Society of Gender Equity in Geosciences at UCLA as a doctoral student here in 2018. Currently on a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship with joint appointments at UC Santa Cruz and the University of Southern California, she also studies the impact of wildfires on phytoplankton blooms in California’s ocean.

Moscoso and Aurnou have used DIYnamics to teach concepts of planetary fluid dynamics at UCLA and beyond, including at the national Earth Educators’ Rendezvous. The importance of this work goes back to where it began: As a graduate student one summer, Aurnou ran experiments with a rotating tank he found. The mesmerizing display shocked a distinguished faculty member, who couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw a visual representation of the theory he had studied for decades.

“A lot of times these phenomena are so big, it’s hard to wrap your head around what they even look like,” Aurnou says. “But if you can see it on your desk, control it, play with it, your imagination gets lit up. This is STEAM engagement we’ve designed to scale.”

A mainstay at UCLA’s annual Exploring Your Universe science festival and the subject of an official write-up in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, DIYnamics has truly been a group effort that reflects its team members’ shared commitment to awakening the scientist within everyone.

“We want to make this accessible so people of all ages can make their own discoveries or just understand the world around them better,” says Moscoso. “Science is the language of discovery, and we want everyone to be fluent in it.”