Team:Korea U Seoul/Human Practice/Outreach

As a part of our human practices, we went to CSIA, ChungSim International Academy, to introduce igem and synthetic biology to high school students. We lectured about the definition and the prospects of synthetic biology, and the purpose of igem. Since synthetic biology is not well known in Korea, most of the students knew nothing about it at first. After the lecture, they were fascinated and showed a lot of interest in it.

We tried to give publicity about iGEM andsynthetic biology to many students. So we exhibited posters of pictures andwritings about iGEM and our team projects. In addition, we conducted a survey targetingKorean undergraduates. The questions were ‘Do you know Synthetic biology?’ and ‘Didour posters help you to get more interested in iGEM and Synthetic biology?’ Andthe results showed that 95 percent of our subjects answered ‘no’ for the firstquestion, but 99% of the students answered the second question with ‘yes’!.

Creative Challenger Program(CCP) is a Korea University's program which encourages undergraduate students to voluntarily organize a team of a common interest, and to research about their concerned field. This program receives Korea government grants in aid of Korea government enterprise which is discovering talented scientist. For the purpose of nurturing students with talent and creativity, Center for Teaching and learning(CTL), a sponsoring body, carefully examines and assesses each and every team with their project, process, and outcome. There are many fields of study students can participate, including engineering/information and communication, economy/business, culture/art/sport, humanities/society, and nature science. Because CCP covers a wide range of area, teams are encouraged to exchange ideas and communicate with others. Korea_U_Seoul has been participating in CCP since 2010, sharing knowledge about iGEM and synthetic biology for years. In 2012, Korea_U_Seoul was designated as one of the most competent teams of all, getting an opportunity to let people know about iGEM and synthetic biology by posters and videos. Researching for better results and informing synthetic biology will be continued even after iGEM is over.