Team:Sheffield/outreach

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Revision as of 17:31, 12 October 2014 by JayChin (Talk | contribs)






On October 7th, 2014 we conducted an outreach workshop for the Science Club at St. Thomas More College in Denton, Tameside. We spent an hour educating pupils in Year 10 and 11 (age 14-16) about synthetic biology, the iGEM competition and pursuing careers in science and engineering post- secondary education. The workshop was divided into 3 sections: an introductory presentation about synthetic biology and the iGEM competition, a brainstorming session in which the students considered which problems they would choose to solve using synthetic biology, and a concluding presentation about our own project.


                        Introduction                                                                          15:00 - 15:05                                                      We introduced ourselves and what we
                                                                                                                                                                                                        do to the students.                                                      
              Synthetic biology presentation                                                 15:05 - 15:25                                                      Our presentation consisted of:
                                                                                                                                                                                                          What is synthetic biology?
                                                                                                                                                                                                          How the BioBrick registry works
                                                                                                                                                                                                          Examples of previous iGEM projects                    
                   Group work activity                                                                  15:25 - 15:35                                                      We asked the students to divide into
                                                                                                                                                                                                        groups of 3/4 to brainstorm about problems
                                                                                                                                                                                                        they would solve with synthetic biology.              
                          Feedback                                                                              15:35 - 15:40                                                      One member of each group explained the
                                                                                                                                                                                                        ideas they had discussed back to the class.       
               "Fatberglars" presentation                                                        15:40 - 15:55                                                      We gave a presentation of our project to
                                                                                                                                                                                                        the students, consisting of:
                                                                                                                                                                                                          The problems caused by fatbergs
                                                                                                                                                                                                          How we are solving this problem
                                                                                                                                                                                                          The social/ethical ideas we considered in our
                                                                                                                                                                                                          project                
                        Q&A session                                                                          15:55 - 16:00                                                      We answered questions posed to us by the
                                                                                                                                                                                                        students.                                                                       




Our introductory presentation aimed to inform the students about what synthetic biology actually is. We provided a basic overview of how bacteria could be transformed to provide useful products, how the BioBrick registry worked, and how synthetic biology can be used to create novel solutions that could be used by communities all over the world. The students were then given an outline of what the iGEM competition is, why it exists and why they should participate in future.
Our introductory presentation aimed to inform the students about what synthetic biology actually is. We provided a basic overview of how bacteria could be transformed to provide useful products, how the BioBrick registry worked, and how synthetic biology can be used to create novel solutions that could be used by communities all over the world. The students were then given an outline of what the iGEM competition is, why it exists and why they should participate in future.
After our presentation the students divided themselves into small groups of 3 or 4 and were asked to imagine they were part of an iGEM team. We asked them to think the sort of difficulties they would choose to tackle, how they would solve this problem biologically and how they would take into account the ethical or social impact their project may face.
After 10 minutes of discussion one member of the group was asked to report back to the class. A wide variety of responses were received, and the students were particularly enthusiastic about using synthetic biology for medical purposes and to solve their own practical problems.
In the final section of the workshop we presented our project to the students. We explained how fats, oils and greases can lead to blockages in drainage and sewerage systems, and how we intended to solve this using lipase and keratinase. We explained our product to the students and gave an overview of all the different social and ethical ideas we explored during our iGEM project.
At the end of the session students asked many questions and were offered a cake.

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