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Team:Brasil-SP/Outreach/Open University - society within the Academy
From 2014.igem.org
The University Federal of São Carlos (UFSCar) organizes a popular (and free entry) meeting named “Universidade Aberta” (translated as “Open University”) since 1998. The major goal of Open University is to increase the interest of young citizens for the knowledge, science, as well as for academic careers that lead to a profession. People of all ages can attend the event, but the main target audience are high school students. The Open University is one of the most important academic event in the north-central region of São Paulo State, where live nearly 2 million inhabitants. This year, in September 22 and 23, around 15,000 visitors from São Carlos and neighbor cities attended to the meeting, a special moment that integrated people from society and academy. We (members of Brasil-SP Team) presented about the perspectives of the Biotechnology career in Brazil, the Biotechnology Course offered by UFSCar, and as well as about Synthetic Biology. Presentations include one lecture, eight guided visits to molecular biology and microbiology local laboratories, and a total of 24 hours of interaction activities, from reception to dialogue with visitors at our stall, based on a rotating schedule of members (14 hours in Sept 22 and 10 hours in Sept 23). In the labs, attendees received information about infrastructure, basic and applied research, and observed the differences between non-transformed bacteria compared to recombinant bacteria expressing GFP. In the stall, iGEMers presented different strategies to publicize both Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology, such as: plastic parts for assembly of three-dimensional structure of DNA and proteins; models of recombinant plasmid, E. coli, restriction enzymes, and BioBricks. The main highlight was the presentation of our research project and genetic circuit designed for iGEM 2014, “The Kidney Sensing”, which illustrated for the audience how students are able to make cutting edge science since their first years in the University.
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