Teen Conference Tours 2026

Table of Contents

Tour #1 – Tuesday, June 23rd 2026 1:30 – 3:30 pm

USDA Western Wheat Quality Lab

USDA Western Wheat Quality Lab – Love Wheat? Visit the Wheat Quality Lab! Come tour our facility and see awesome aspects of the wheat industry, including milling, genetic testing, flour testing, and baking. Students the opportunity see various baked products made from local wheat as well as mix and bake their own sugar snap cookies using the official method. We’ll compare the differences between hard and soft flours and discuss the optimal end-use of the different wheat varieties grown in our area.

UI Seed Potato and Aquaculture Laboratories

The University of Idaho Seed Potato Germplasm Program a critical facility that cleans, maintains, and distributes disease-free, potato plantlets and minitubers to global researchers and growers. Established in 1983, it serves as the source for roughly 90% of Idaho’s potato crops and 60% of U.S. potato production. Students will also tour UI’s Aquaculture Research Institute. This program collaborates with scientists from other universities, government agencies, Native American tribes, and the global aquaculture industry. While many ARI projects center on rainbow trout, researchers also study native and non-native species — including cutthroat trout, redband trout, sturgeon, burbot, tilapia, catfish and freshwater ornamentals such as zebrafish. Through external partnerships, ARI’s work also extends to marine species, including shrimp and other commercially important ocean fish.

WSU Sport Sciences Laboratory and Planetarium

WSU Sport Sciences Laboratory and Planetarium – Join WSU’s physics department for both a planetarium show and a tour of WSU’s Sport Sciences laboratory. We are very excited to bring back this interesting tour again this year.

WSU Athletics

This tour will explore the many, varied career paths connected to WSU athletics. Participants will walk through some of WSU’s state-of-the-art athletics facilities and get a chance to ask questions about all that goes into the operations of WSU Athletics. Whether you are interested in business, communications, sports medicine, organizational leadership or are even a potential student athlete this tour will have something of interest to you. Go Cougs!

CSI: Forensic Entomology

After 72 hours post-mortem, entomology provides the most accurate estimation as to when a person may have died. In this tour, students will explore death investigation in a hands-on session where they will discover a death scene, document relevant information, collect specimens and data, and use climate data to calculate the Time of Colonization, a metric that can inform investigators in finding a time of death. Note: Students will not interact with an actual cadaver, but will have the opportunity to interact with actual live and preserved insects. Slides will contain images of insects feeding on carrion, but tour leaders will ensure images are not too graphic.

Step into the World of WSU Veterinary Medicine

Step into the world of the WSU Veterinary School with interactive workshops using simulation to practice different ways that veterinary professionals care for patients! Get to know current WSU CVM students and staff while you learn! Activities will take place in the newly renovated Simulation-Based Education clinical skills teaching facilities as well as McCoy Hall, and you MUST wear closed-toe shoes to participate.

Dairy Tour – WSU’s Ferdinand’s Creamery and WSU Dairy

Follow the process of making cheese from the finish to the beginning! Start at Ferdinands, the WSU Creamery and learn how milk from the dairy becomes the delicious Cougar Gold. Then, travel to WSU’s dairy to tour the newly upgraded facility and learn about dairy production.

Engineering

Join WSU’s Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture staff for a tour of the brand-new Schweitzer Engineering Hall on campus. You will also get a chance to meet engineering students and visit various other engineering labs on this tour.

Tour #2 – Wednesday, June 24th 1:30-3:30 pm

Schweitzer Engineering Laboratory

Thank you for choosing to visit us here at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories! We’re excited to take you and your group through some of the sights and sounds we experience each day. Helping educate students about electricity, careers, manufacturing, and engineering is part of our mission to make electrical power safer, more reliable, and more economical.

WSU Bee Center and Grizzly Bear Visit

This tour will begin with a visit to WSU’s Pollinator Health and Apiculture Lab. Learn about important research surrounding honey bee and pollinator health. After the Bee Center, travel over the Grizzly Bear research facility for a peek at these incredible creatures!

Introduction to Emergency Services

Participants will be given a scenario and will be asked to consider who needs to respond to this scene and what they believe needs to happen in order to get the best possible outcome. There will be a police patrol officer, police K9 officer and dog, the fire department responding to the scene. They will be able to help participants think through the scenario and will then be able to talk more about their jobs and requirements/steps toward a career in their specific jobs.

WSU Biosciences and Planetarium

This tour will begin with a scavenger hunt that encourages participants to explore the Conner Museum and rooftop greenhouses in Abelson Hall. The second half of the tour will be a trip to WSU’s Planetarium for a show of the night skies.

Step into the World of WSU Veterinary Medicine

Step into the world of the WSU Veterinary School with interactive workshops using simulation to practice different ways that veterinary professionals care for patients! Get to know current WSU CVM students and staff while you learn! Activities will take place in the newly renovated Simulation-Based Education clinical skills teaching facilities as well as McCoy Hall, and you MUST wear closed-toe shoes to participate.

WSU Compost Center and WSU Eggert Organic Farm

Tour will begin with a tour of WSU’s compost center. Then we’ll have a short overview of the Eggert Organic Farm and organic agriculture in Washington State. We will then demonstrate the farm’s vermicomposting systems. This includes outdoor worm bins that utilizes plant waste from kitchen and farm to produce a rich microbiological healthy material for use in greenhouse, hoop houses, and field vegetable production. Participants will be able to see worms, vermicompost in the making, and finished product.

Dairy Tour – WSU’s Ferdinand’s Creamery and WSU Dairy

Dairy Tour – WSU’s Ferdinands Creamery and WSU Dairy – Follow the process of making cheese from the finish to the beginning! Start at Ferdinands, the WSU Creamery and learn how milk from the dairy becomes the delicious Cougar Gold. Then, travel to WSU’s dairy to tour the newly upgraded facility and learn about dairy production.

WSU Engineering

Join WSU’s Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture staff for a tour of the brand-new Schweitzer Engineering Hall on campus. You will also get a chance to meet engineering students and visit various other engineering labs on this tour.