Get Involved
Whether you want to learn, explore, fund a discovery, or follow a scientist into a cave, there's a place for you in the CHAOS ecosystem.
Learn
From cave microbes to environmental mysteries, follow the discoveries, expeditions, and occasional scientific obsession that drive the lab.
From cave microbes and environmental mysteries to monsters, movies, and scientifically questionable hypotheticals, explore the science communication side of the Washburn CHAOS Lab.
Learn to think like a scientist by applying the scientific method to the fandoms and fictional worlds you already obsess over, then earn an official Certificate of Feral Science from the Washburn CHAOS Lab.
Follow along on our blog as we collect samples, analyze data, chase discoveries, battle grant deadlines, celebrate breakthroughs, and occasionally learn things the hard way.
Participate
From collecting samples to joining expeditions and sharing science with others, there are plenty of ways to roll up your sleeves and join the adventure.
Help wrangle data, support projects, contribute observations, and occasionally assist with the organized chaos that keeps scientific research moving forward.
Join the Washburn CHAOS Lab for hands-on science experiences, field sampling events, lab tours, workshops, and opportunities to contribute to real research without needing a PhD or a suspicious number of academic credentials.
Interested in a keynote, classroom visit, convention panel, workshop, podcast appearance, live Q&A, or community event? Invite a scientist from the Washburn CHAOS Lab and bring feral science directly to your audience.
Go beyond a day trip and join the Washburn CHAOS Lab on real scientific expeditions, gaining behind-the-scenes access to fieldwork, research, discoveries, and the occasional scientifically justified adventure.
Support
Every expedition, sample, discovery, and scientific rabbit hole starts somewhere, and your support helps keep the adventure moving forward.
Know a cave, spring, mine, stream, sinkhole, landslide, or other interesting location? Submit it for consideration and help support the fieldwork needed to uncover what secrets it might be hiding.
Leave your mark on science by helping decide what name one of our unclassified microbial discoveries will carry into scientific history, from throwing names into the mix and casting votes to claiming naming rights outright.
Take a little chaos home with you while helping support future expeditions, discoveries, outreach, and scientifically questionable levels of enthusiasm.
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Washburn CHAOS Lab
Science is metal. Science is feral. Science is CHAOS.
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complex host and abiotic systems
@washburnchaoslab
Feral scientists exploring hostile systems, unstable environments, and the chemistry shaping what survives there.