Education

We held a workshop in Hokkaido University Festival, as iGEM HokkaidoU team, following last year. In this event, we tried to explain these things

• "What is DNA?" and "DNA is actually familiar to us."
• “What is iGEM?” and “What is our activity?”

To achieve our goal, we conducted an experiment: “Detection of DNA extraction from banana” and poster sessions: “What is DNA?” , ”What is synthetic biology? ” and “What is iGEM?”

In the experiment, participants used only daily materials to get more familiar with DNA.

How to Exmeriment

1. Crush one third of banana with spoon; to break its cell wall
2. Mix well 10% saltine water 30 mL and detergent 2.5 mL; Saltine water makes nucleic acid and salt. Detergent breaks cell membrane.
3. Pour 1 and 2 into a beaker through coffee filter and filtrate them.
4. After 5minutes or so, pour 100% ethanol 40 mL into the beaker slowly.
5. Then you’ll see some white lump, that’s exactly DNA!!

This experiment is so easy that people of all ages, from children to the elderly, are able to enjoy it and feel DNA is familiar with them.

Poster Session

In poster session, we made a presentation about four contents; about DNA, gene recombination, iGEM and our project of last year.

We drew posters with pictures and illustrations to let people understand easily and had some conversation with them to know how they understand our explanation. We had a good chance to communicate with people having various background or generation and to practice presentation.

Extracted DNA

Survey

We took questionnaires from participants of our workshop, 133 people. Here we show them.

And we asked them to quantify their impression about gene recombination from 0 (bad) to 10 (good), attached with the reasons. Before and after the experiment, their answer changed.

Participant 1

Age: 40's Sex: F

Before; 5: Because gene recombination seems to be unnatural

After; 8: Because to add the good condition is good I feel it's good thing

Participant 2

Age: 20's Sex: F

Before; 8: Because it is necessary

After; 8: Because it is necessary and has many possibilities

Participant 3

Age: 40's Sex: F

Before; 1: Because natural corns or soy beans seem better than gene recommbinated corns or soy beans

After; 7: If it is used for medicine and limited in supportive usage, I can accept it

Participant 4

Age: teenager Sex: M

Before; 8: Because there are so many benefits to use gene recombination

After; 8: Because I have known about it before this event, the impression is not so changed

Participant 5

Age: 20's Sex: M

Before; 8: Because gene recombination is necessary under this circumstance

After; 5: As I usually feel about it

Participant 6

Age: teenager Sex: F

Before; 5: Because it might be true that gene recombination makes sence in developping technology but I'm afraid that genetically modified foods harm our health

After; 5: Same as previous comment

Participant 7

Age: 20's Sex: F

Before; 3: Because there are noisome impressions about gene recombination because usually food labeling says "We don't use any GM foods"

After; 5: Because I heard that it is useful in our lives for example making medicine by E. coli

Participant 8

Age: teenager Sex: M

Before; 5: Because I learned about geneticall-modified rice I wanted to give good score but I also heard about a bad news about genetically-modified sheep so I gave you average score

After; 6: Because sometimes it is necessary for research the impression became a little better

At last, we show you the comments from the participants.