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Team:Penn State/HumanPractices2
From 2014.igem.org
WELCOME TO PENN STATE iGEM 2014! |
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Since past iGEM teams have been very active in outreach and education, we began this summer with the goal of doing the same. We found a perfect opportunity with NEWBio, also known as the Northeast Woody/Warm-season Biomass Consortium. NEWBio is "a regional network of universities, businesses, and governmental organizations dedicated to building robust, scalable, and sustainable value chains for biomass energy in the Northeast (NE). Driven by the broad societal benefits that sustainable bioenergy value chains could provide, NEWBio aims to overcome existing barriers and dramatically increase the sustainable, cost-effective supply of lignocellulosic biomass while reducing net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, enhancing ecosystem services, and building vibrant communities." The purpose of NEWBio is to help train secondary school educators in the principles of bioenergy. In this way, NEWBio seeks to "train the trainers" that will have an impact on the future career's of the nation's youth. The program is a week long workshop where teachers are exposed to the many areas of biology in a variety of ways. The week is spent listening to talks led by professors and groups, exploring the campus, and ultimately making new lesson plans for the school year. We presented to a group of 10 teachers on our research and the need for biorenewable fuels. Our message to them was how the tools of synthetic biology can be used to combat energy and environmental crises and demonstrate how they can introduce simple synthetic biology techniques to their classes. Through this outreach we facilitated the flow of information from the bench to the classroom. The iGEM team is a great asset to this program, as we can provide the teachers with information in a way that students would enjoy and understand. This is also a great experience in learning how to better discuss our iGEM projects and present to groups of people who may know little about the subject. Here we were able to show these teachers ways that they can explain synthetic biology to their students. These are easily reproducible activities and are fun, too! |
| Learn more about NEWBio! |
| Link to our Prezi |
Engineering a Metabolic Pathway |
| In this simulation, colored beads were poured through each set of clear tubes. The beads represented chemicals or molecules entering a pathway which would alter them. The tubes represented the pathways which consisted of different genes being expressed at different levels. The first scenario represents a properly engineered pathway where the output of both genes is similar. This model allowed the beads to flow through the tubes with a constant pace. Our second scenario represented what can happen when a gene in the pathway is over-expressed. Here, the first gene was expressing at almost double what the second gene could take in. This caused the beads to build-up in the first tube while only allowing a small amount through the rest of the pathway. The third scenario shows a missing gene or a gene knockout situation. This pertains to the Biodexification project in how we are identifying the necessary genes for the HMF pathway to function in E. coli. When beads were poured through, the bottom tube did not receive any as they were not "metabolized" and in the correct form due to the missing gene. |
Assembling a Plasmid Activity |
| This activity explained individual parts needed to make a functional plasmid and how they are used in the processes of transcription and translation. The group was given an handout of definitions of each part and, with our help, were able to put each part where it belongs. |
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| A major question that we were faced with this summer was what to do to continue the outreach of previous Penn State iGEM teams. Presenting to SCIENCE U was one of the results of our efforts. This presentation was to 30 high school students about genetic engineering. ScienceU is a program through the Eberly College of Science at Penn State and the goal is to reach out to kids in the community and provide a learning opportunity for them to spark ingenuity and a passion for science. The camp that we presented at was a week long program called "Science Leadership Camp" where high school kids of different ethnic backgrounds were able to come together and learn about possible career paths in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). |
| Learn more about SCIENCE U! |
Central Dogma Relay |
| A small portion of our 80 minute presentation focuses on an activity called Central Dogma Relay.The goal of this activity was to get kids moving and understand how DNA codes for proteins. They were given a coding sequence (white) the complementary strand codons (blue) the mRNA codons (green) and the amino acid (orange). We reversed engineered sequences of DNA so that the amino acid strand would spell things like "Penn State" and "Science". We received a lot of positive feedback and were offered the opportunity to present again in the fall as part of ScienceU's STEM showcase.
This experience builds on the reputation set up by Penn State's iGEM teams in previous years as a very knowledgeable and accessible group that is committed to educating others. It can be continued by future iGEM teams, and was so popular this year that it could easily be expanded to include more students in future years. We believe that through this type of community involvement, especially with the energy and creativity level that is typical of iGEM teams, a strong foundation will be created that the next generation of engineers will spring off of. | The foundation that we built on. |
Engineering a Metabolic Pathway: ROUND 2 |
As the second part of our presentation, we talked about how we designed our project and the different aspects that are important when you are thinking about a plasmid. This was a little more technical, but the kids caught on very quickly and every group was able to construct their own plasmid. I think that this reinforces the idea that this is a quick activity that teachers can take to the classroom and use to teach their students about genetic engineering. This type of repeat-ability is what gives our outreach a stronger impact. Much like a part in the registry, we took a concept for community involvement that has been used by previous iGEM teams, improved it, repeated it, and set the stage for it to be even better next year.
Our SCIENCE U Presentation
Download our complete presentation and take a look! Note that this material is geared for students with little prior knowledge in the subject area, and is meant to be a very interactive presentation. |
