Education

Overview

As we continue to study the world around us, we see that synthetic biology has become increasingly prominent in our lives. With bioluminescent waves and new, protein rich genetically modified foods, synthetic biology has the power to provide deep insights regarding our environment and can serve as a tool for technological growth. We feel it is therefore vital to educate our community about the impacts and daily occurrences of synthetic biology in action in the world around us, providing our own research as an example of the transformative power of synthetic biology.

We reached out to schools around our local community to educate students about synthetic biology and its applications. We used these interactive sessions to spark children’s interest in the subject matter and spread knowledge about bioluminescence, GMOs, and the prevalence of synthetic biology in common products around us. To further these sessions, we hosted a summer camp to provide synthetic biology opportunities to younger children. Our Forensic Summer Camp made learning biology fun for young kids, they were able to conduct pH tests, identify missing powders using chemical properties, and solubility tests. We aimed to provide them with an interactive lesson, allowing them to explore this complex, fun field!

In addition to this, our team published a sequel children’s book to the original “Perry the Plasmid” to educate future generations on synthetic biology and plasmids in a fun, and interactive way.

We also set up a booth at our local STEM fair where we taught the structure of DNA through fun and interactive DNA bracelets. This event helped us connect more with the general public within our community and raise awareness about synthetic biology.

Our team put together a symposium for local community members where we presented our project idea to educate them on the importance of our project.

Summer Camps

One of our main goals was to generate students’ interest in synthetic biology from a young age. This year, we hoped to further our outreach to elementary schoolers. Typically, these students are only taught science in very basic terms, focusing primarily on the life and earth sciences. According to the Science Content Standards for California public schools, chemical reactions are typically only introduced in 5th grade, in a simplified form: “Students know differences in chemical and physical properties of substances are used to separate mixtures and identify compounds.”

Thus, our team held a free one week forensics-themed summer camp for 1st through 5th graders. Through the camp, we hoped to deepen students’ knowledge of science through engaging, hands-on activities. We introduced the idea of physical versus chemical reactions and the concept of conservation of matter. We also introduced the students to properties they might not have been exposed to before, such as solubility and pH. We paired this with hands-on testing of various unknown powders and liquids. By performing guided tests on the powders, including their pH, solubility in water, reaction to HCl and iodine, and observations through a magnifying glass, students were able to identify the mystery powders (salt, sugar, cornstarch, gelatin, baking soda, Alka seltzer, and vitamin C) and liquids (water, lemon juice, hydrogen peroxide, rubbing alcohol, and vinegar). Other forensics-related activities we conducted included fingerprinting and identifying the different types of fingerprints, as well as paper chromatography. We concluded with interactive Kahoots on the subject matter to test the students’ knowledge and foster fun competition!

Especially when working with young students, it is crucial to discuss lab safety. Throughout the camp, we emphasized the importance of not ingesting any of the substances. We made sure students were wearing their safety goggles at all times. We also taught the students how to waft a sample, rather than directly smelling it. Overall, our camp was a huge success with lots of interaction and participation.

In addition to providing direct instruction to students, we also created an archive of our engaging and educational slides on forensic related biology topics. Other science educators and iGEM teams can use these resources as inspiration for their own education ventures. The slideshows provide a full five day summer camp plan for 1st-5th graders with hands-on lab activities included.

Children's Book

In order to further engage younger students, we wrote and illustrated a fun and educational choose-your-own-adventure children’s picture book designed to spark curiosity and introduce young readers to the exciting field of synthetic biology. We introduced the relationship between bacteriophages, bacteria, and plasmids through storytelling and accessible illustrations. Told through the perspective of Perry the Plasmid, it emphasizes the importance of resilience and problem-solving, making it an essential read for budding scientists and inquisitive minds. We wanted to help educate the next generation of scientists to explore and contribute to synthetic biology in their future. This book was a sequel to our previous children’s book from last year, making it an addition to the Perry the Plasmid series. We read these books to children at the public library, furthering our reach of spreading synthetic biology to our local community’s youth.

Book

Library Talks

We hosted six library talks at local and non local libraries that educated children on the importance and every day applications of synthetic biology. We partnered with 8 nearby elementary and middle schools to help advertise our talks, and received lots of participation.

The library talks, in addition to our summer camp, served as an introduction to synthetic biology for children aged 6 - 12. These 1 hour weekly sessions served as a starting point for many children as they began their journey through science, furthering the knowledge they receive from school. In these library talks, we covered key details on fun and science filled topics such as drought resistant plants, bioluminescence, glowing jellyfish, and common foods made through synthetic biology. We provided students with fun-filled activities to end our sessions by encouraging them to brainstorm their very own synthetically-made fruit as well as participating in Kahoots to test their knowledge.

These sessions helped us introduce synthetic biology to future scientists to further grow the field and ensure that our local iGEM/synthetic biology community continues to thrive in the future.

Library Slides

STEM Fair

We participated in our community’s local STEM fair, playing an integral role in educating children about the basics of DNA. We set up a booth with a presentation on synthetic biology and its interesting applications such as bioluminescence and drought resistant plants. After our presentation, we encouraged kids to further explore the properties of DNA by providing materials and guiding them through a DNA bracelet making process. We received feedback from parents that this activity allowed the children to further their knowledge in the classroom by giving them a visualization of how different nucleotides come together to make unique bracelets, each in a double helix shape.

The STEM fair also allowed us to increase our community reach by better spreading knowledge of iGEM, advertising our library talks and getting the community more involved in our research. We used this as an opportunity to gain a variety of feedback on our survey from different demographics, allowing us to understand the true impact of biosensors on ordinary people in the community as well as well versed scientists and farmers. Overall, the STEM fair was a great way to spread and gain knowledge of the impact of our project as well as get children in our community interested in STEM at a young age.

Community Member Symposium

We held a symposium for adults in our community to inform individuals well versed in a variety of subjects about the impact our research has on a variety of people. For many participating members, this was the first time they’d heard about biosensors and the importance of detecting molecules in the environment around us. We guided them through the intricacies of our research, scicomm, and software process, informing them on how our project combines a variety of fields to achieve a common purpose.

The symposium received impressive attendance and provided us with an opportunity to showcase and detail our work to our community.The community was proud of the work we are doing to impact those around us, and feedback we received from the symposium was integral to understanding our approach to providing a clear and concise research process to communicate our findings to those who are not experts in the field.

Inter School Symposium

In addition, we hosted another symposium session with other local iGEM teams, to share our research and learn about each other’s work. We gained valuable presentation skills and enjoyed learning about other teams’ projects and their take on the impact of synthetic biology! Our goal was to educate them on the importance of our project and the wide impact of biosensors to a variety of problems. Collaborating with the other teams in our area was really helpful in getting good feedback on our project and developing a clearer vision for our outreach. This iGEM year, our team created an interactive application: Fluorofinders.The app was created to promote education regarding synthetic biology. Through extensive interviewing processes and surveying, we found out that many people didn’t know much about synthetic biology or why it's so useful to our daily lives. To help better this cause, we added an educational feature in our app that explains synthetic biology applications in various areas: farming, medicine, and protecting the environment. After conducting a second round of surveying and interviewing, we concluded that people that played around and interacted with our app showed a much higher comprehension of synthetic biology information compared to those that didn’t.

Survey

To tackle challenges in environmental pollution and human health, the 2024 iGEM team at Del Norte High School is developing biosensors by screening various molecules with a large library of E. coli promoters. Our goal is to identify promoter-molecule pairs that produce the highest fluorescence response and to observe how this response changes with different molecule concentrations. This research will lay the groundwork for future biosensor development and inspire further exploration. In order to evaluate our community’s understanding of environmental pollution, the 2024 iGEM team at Del Norte High School released a survey on July 6, 2024. The survey included 18 original questions. They were split into three different question formats: demographic questions, knowledge-based questions and personal questions. Demographic questions asked the age and highest level of education of the person. Knowledge-based questions included both true or false questions as well as multiple-choice questions.

Survey Questions

Survey Statistics and Analysis

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There were a total of 41 responses received. Out of the 8 questions, the mean accuracy was 3.54/8 or 44.25% while the median was 3/8 or 37.5%. The range of the correct answers was from 0-7 points, with 0/13 being the lowest and 7/13 being the highest. The question with the highest number of correct responses was “True or False: It is good for individuals to take action in order to reduce environmental pollution through sustainable steps” with 39/41 correct responses. This is a general question, and not surprising that so many people got it correct.

Figure 1. Response accuracy to knowledge based questions.

In contrast, the question with the lowest number of correct responses was Question 6, “Multiple Choice: What are primary pollutants found in water pollution?”, with only 3/41 correct responses. We noticed a few patterns, like how more people got the later questions, like 8-13 more incorrect, than 1-7. This could mean that people thought that they knew the right answer, which is why they guessed more. This demonstrates how many people think that they know much about environmental pollution, but when it comes to looking at the correct responses, they are very low. This would be a general trend that we can get from our audience, that they know of the topic, but are not very knowledgeable in depth about environmental pollution. Additionally, people got the questions that were more general knowledge correct over those that were more in depth with synthetic biology, which shows that the general community doesn't know much about synthetic biology. To account for such low scores versus high scores, this might be due to the multiple selection for some questions, for which you would need to select all the correct answers to get it right, which is more difficult. To add, some people might guess, which might lead to more incorrect answers.

The results of this survey helped us recognize that we could make a significant improvement in our community’s understanding of biosensors, environmental pollution, and other pollutants– all of which are topics that are essential to understanding our project. This inspired us to post short infographics with the correct answers to the survey questions on our Instagram page, in order to give our followers the opportunity to check their answers and learn from their mistakes.

Figure 2. Survey answer graphics posted on our Instagram page.

Graphics for the answers to questions 3-10:

Survey Privacy Statement

The information from this survey is purely for statistical purposes. Each response was recorded anonymously with consent, and no identifying data was collected.

Interactive Application

This season, our team created an interactive application: Fluorofinders.The app was created to promote education regarding synthetic biology. Through extensive interviewing processes and surveying, we found out that many people didn’t know much about synthetic biology or why it's so useful to our daily lives. To help better this cause, we added an educational feature in our app that explains synthetic biology applications in various areas: farming, medicine, and protecting the environment. After conducting a second round of surveying and interviewing, we concluded that people that played around and interacted with our app showed a much higher comprehension of synthetic biology information compared to those that didn’t.

Additionally, we included specific information regarding our research project focusing on biotechnology to detect harm in the environment. Our app, bringing these elements together, helps serve as a way to teach generations about science and showcase our work.By sharing this information in a simple format, we hope to encourage more people to ask questions while learning about new scientific ideas. This app holds key value in starting those important conversations.

To promote active user engagement, we also created an interactive quiz. This quiz helps users test their knowledge and offers suggestions based on their answers, such as other sections to explore or ways to take action in their communities. By making learning fun and interactive, the app helps users retain information and get more engaged with science.

Apps like this make learning easier and more accessible for everyone. In today’s digital world, having information in a mobile, user-friendly format is crucial. The app can reach people who might not have the proper accessibility, whether they're curious individuals, students, or teachers. This app helps spread knowledge about synthetic biology and environmental issues to more people, regardless of their location or background.

The app also supports other outreach efforts, like our children’s book on synthetic biology and our library events. By including these aspects in our app, we can engage different age groups and get more people involved. These people can include: kids, adults or even families. Our end goal is to inspire people and help them understand the important issues surrounding synthetic biology and the environment.

The app does offer a great platform for education and outreach, however we should also recognise its limitations. One challenge is to ensure that the content is accessible and engaging for all users. We cannot predict how different people learn the best, but we’ve worked towards making information clear and easy to understand. There is always room for improvement in reaching different learning styles and age groups. Additionally, maintaining up-to-date information on newly developed topics like synthetic biology is crucial. We must constantly update the app to keep it relevant.

Our next steps focus on expanding our app’s features and reach. We aim to add more interactive elements (videos/virtual experiments) to further engage users. If it’s possible, we would also like to collaborate with different nearby schools and community organizations to integrate the app into educational programs. Finally we aim to collect user feedback in order to refine app content and add new topics based upon specific interests. Through these efforts, we hope to keep improving the app and encourage even more people to explore our scientific world.

Elementary School Visits

We visited the nearby elementary school, Design 39 Campus, as an extension of our library talks, partnering with teachers and discussing how they can incorporate our material in their daily lessons. We gave the children a preliminary presentation on the basics of synthetic biology, building off the knowledge they learn in class and teaching them how this applies to our daily lives. This was the first in our series of school presentations, and we plan to visit elementary schools every month throughout the year to further incorporate synthetic biology and its unique applications into their curriculum.

Media Privacy Statement

All pictures were taken with consent of parents/guardians through a media release form.