Team:Virginia/HumanPractices

From 2014.igem.org

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<li>Day Two: A Day in the Life of an iGEMer</li>
<li>Day Two: A Day in the Life of an iGEMer</li>

Revision as of 20:16, 12 October 2014

Human Practices

A Three-Tiered Approach: Local to Global

For the human practices portion of our project, we wanted to continue the work of previous University of Virginia teams, while also pursuing a project unique to our current group. To sum it up, we wanted to do A LOT this year. We decided to organize all of these projects into a multi-tiered system with the different tiers focusing on the local, regional and international communities. Locally, we organized a Synthetic Biology Night at the University of Virginia, which was open to students from the University as well as locals interested in science and synthetic biology. Regionally, we continued to partner with Renaissance High School in downtown Charlottesville and began a new partnership with a public school in Albemarle County. We also met with Lynn Clements, the director of projects for the Rapidan Service Authority, to tour a regional wastewater treatment plant and discuss the need and feasibility of our project’s implementation in wastewater treatment systems. Globally, we created a Synthetic Biology Awareness and Acceptance survey and asked iGEM teams to distribute it in their communities across the world.

About the Panel

On September 24th, the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) team at UVA hosted its first Synthetic Biology Night at OpenGrounds. The event opened with a discussion of the ethical issues related to synthetic biology by three field experts. Dr. Kozminski, a molecular biologist, provided scientific background on the field of synthetic biology and brought the scientist’s perspective to the discussion. Dr. Arras, a professor in the bioethics department and member of President Obama’s committee on bioethical issues, provided insight on ethical and religious groups’ perceptions of synthetic biology. Professor Bagley, of the UVA Law School, shed some light on the legal side of synthetic biology research, especially issues concerning the patenting of genes modified or created using synthetic biology methods. The panel was moderated by Cara Broshkevitch, a second year biomedical engineering student and member of the 2014 iGEM team at UVA. Panelists discussed a range of ethical topics from the environmental release of bacteria to the proper regulation of synthetic biology research. After the panel discussion, attendees had a chance to chat with the panelists one on one, and view posters submitted by local high schoolers for a competition entitled What Can Synthetic Biology Do for You?


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HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION

Last year, the 2013 VGEM team reached out to Renaissance School and offered to teach a class on synthetic biology and the iGEM experience. Renaissance accepted, and the VGEM team visited the school once a week for six weeks during the fall. This pilot class has now become a regularly offered course at Renaissance School, and students taught by the 2014 VGEM competed at the 2014 High School iGEM competition. The work of the 2013 team inspired this year’s team to continue and expand their collaborative efforts with schools in the community.

The Math, Engineering and Science Academy (MESA) at Albemarle High School
A New Partnership

This year, we began the summer by reaching out to specialized science programs at public high schools in Albemarle County. We met with Jeff Prillaman, the director of the MESA program, to discuss teaching a synthetic biology crash course similar to our predecessors with his students. He accepted our offer, and we spent the summer preparing a three-day synthetic biology crash course to be presented to two groups of students in the program. Team members taught the synthetic biology course over the week of September 8th. The first class consisted of a general overview of basic molecular biology and an introduction to the field of synthetic biology; this curriculum was taught to both juniors (60) and seniors (40) in the MESA program. The second class was lab-themed; seniors completed a restriction enzyme digest worksheet, loaded, ran and visualized a gel and transformed and plated bacteria containing RFP plasmids. The third class was split into two mini-lectures on the modeling used in synthetic biology and a discussion of the ethics involved in synthetic biology research. The students were given pre and post-assessments for this crash course.

THE RESULTS

Figure 1 shows an overall improvement on student performance after the three-day course. The topics that showed the most improvement were restriction enzymes, gel electrophoresis and transformation. The improvement on these questions corresponds to activities done with students on day two of the course, namely the gel electrophoresis and transformation of a plasmid into E.coli. Questions that covered topics only reviewed in the lectures showed the least improvement, such as recombinant DNA and polymerase chain reaction. To improve understanding of these topics in a future course, interactive activities should be designed to correspond to these topics.
Figure 1. Average points obtained on each question was compared using data from 25 students on pre and post assessments.
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Figure 2. Percentage difference between pre and post assessment scores on each question of the assessment.

Renaissance School
Advising a New Team

On October 8, 2014, we visited Renaissance School to give them feedback on their 2014 iGEM project and advise on their new project for the 2015 High School iGEM competition. We also presented students with awards from the What Can Synthetic Biology Do For You? competition.


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  • Presentations and Protocols
    • Day One: An Introduction to Synthetic Biology
    • Day Two: A Day in the Life of an iGEMer
    • Day Two: Lab Protocols
    • Day Three (Part One): Modeling in Synthetic Biology
    • Day Three (Part Two): The Ethics of Synthetic Biology
  • Worksheets
    • Pre and Post Assessment
    • Day Two: Lab Worksheet
  • Homework Reading
    • VGEM Protocol Handbook
    • Do-It-Yourself Biology? Messing Around with DNA Increasingly a Garage-Band Venture
    • Your Vanilla Ice Cream Is About to Get Weirder
    • Biohackers Are Kickstarting Some Unregulated Experiments

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Sixth

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  • Presentations and Protocols
  • Day One: An Introduction to Synthetic Biology
  • Day Two: A Day in the Life of an iGEMer
  • Day Two: Lab Protocols
  • Day Three (Part One): Modeling in Synthetic Biology
  • Day Three (Part Two): The Ethics of Synthetic Biology
  • Worksheets
  • Pre and Post Assessment
  • Day Two: Lab Worksheet
  • Homework Reading
  • VGEM Protocol Handbook
  • Do-It-Yourself Biology? Messing Around with DNA Increasingly a Garage-Band Venture
  • Your Vanilla Ice Cream Is About to Get Weirder
  • Biohackers Are Kickstarting Some Unregulated Experiments

    • Retrieved from "http://2014.igem.org/Team:Virginia/HumanPractices"