School Project at the Neanderlab

The Neanderlab is a laboratory in Hilden, where classes from schools in the region can do a range of experiments and workshops from soldering to PCR. As a part of our initiative to spark interest for (synthetic) biology and DIY hardware in the young generation, we cooperated with the Gymnasium am Neandertal to bring a grade 11 biology standard level class into the lab.

The students carried out multiple experiments:

• measurement of an E.coli growth curve using our DIY photometer
• plating of Pseudomonas fluorescens on agar plates with different iron concentrations
• chemiluminescence of luminol, catalyzed by a copper wire (an experiment from the Neanderlabs routine)

In parallel to the experiments, we introduced them to the iGEM competition and synthetic biology. We explained our this year's iGEM project. At the end, we also answered the students' questions about synthetic biology and the Biology/Biotechnology university programs.

Figure 1 Growth profiles of E. coli measured by the students

The reception was good, especially when considering that the class consisted of mostly students that chose biology because they are required to select one of either chemistry, physics or biology and thought that biology was the easiest one (haha!). One question in the evaluation sheet asked if the students could imagine a job in a MINT (mathamatics, IT, science and technology) company to be interesting.