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Team:Brasil-SP/Outreach/Open University - society within the Academy
From 2014.igem.org
Open UniversityThe Federal University 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 22th and 23th, 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 22th and 10 hours in Sept 23th). 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.
iGEM reaching the high schoolOn August 28th, four lectures for students from 14 to 17 years old were taught in the town of Mafra-SC, each with a duration of 90 minutes, contemplating 239 students. In these, an introduction to Synthetic Biology for the younger students was held. To make possible to understand, all definitions were presented, like the most basic, as DNA and protein. In addition, the history of molecular biology, the advent of Synthetic Biology, recombinant DNA techniques and concepts such as restriction enzyme, ligation enzyme, and bacterial plasmid transformation were also discussed. Finally, previous iGEM projects have been addressed, as well as the Brasil-SP team project this year. It was remarkable the student's excitement about questions involving ethical concepts, more specifics techniques and predictions for the future. At the beginning of class, we asked to raise their hands the ones who knew the subject. No one did it. At the end of class, everyone understood at least the basics of Synthetic Biology. Several of them were inspired to pursue a career in, talking after class about the course in different universities of our country. Surely the love for this new and promising field of science was awakened in many potential researchers. SIFSCSIFSC (from Portuguese, Institute of Physics of São Carlos Integrated Week) is an event held annually, at Institute of Physics of São Carlos, which provides some employments or groups the chance to expose their works to the people who participate of it. This year, on October 9th, our group got a stand where we could expose our iGEM project, showing to those who come see us all we have done this year related to synthetic biology.
List of our SIFSC stand visitors |
