Education
"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." – Nelson Mandela
Education has been one of the cornerstones of our iGEM project. With half of the members having experience as educators to middle school, high school and university students, we have been quite motivated to share our project and our ideas further to both the younger and older generations, in a fun and easy way. We wished to spark an interest in biology in the younger generation, as well as make people of all ages curious about innovations, biological advancements and iGEM.
Our project is quite ‘heavy’ to convey with only words, as such we decided that the most efficient way to communicate our ideas is to involve a more hands-on educational approach, in addition to adding fun twists, to convey the science behind our idea correctly. We have worked with finding an appropriate way to approach people of all ages and make a big synthetic biology project into an interactive story time, which we shared through our events.
From the beginning we were quite focused on working with Education as an excellence criteria, as 3 of the 7 members are educators, and our team member Marlene Metz devised a brilliant method to share the idea of a cortisol monitoring device with a younger audience as well as people unfamiliar with synthetic biology or biology in general. The Educational Storytime, as we have called it in the team, was shared through different events we participated in and was conceived early in our project phase.
Our Educational goals encompass two main aspects of our project. The first main Educational Goal is explaining synthetic and protein biology using LEGO. We wished to explain the complicated and main parts of the process of transcription, such as amino acids, ribosomes and plasmids, with a hands-on exercise. This concept was created and targeted mostly for middle school students, aged 11-15. In order to explain the three aspects of transcription - plasmids/genetic information, amino acids as building blocks, and ribosomes - a LEGO analogy was prepared. The genetic information to build their own protein was given to visitors as LEGO instructions. These were equivalent to what a ribosome reads and transcribes. In the world of synthetic biology they would be corresponding to a plasmid given to a bacterium. The building blocks here represent what a ribosome uses to make proteins, the amino acids. By following this concept, the visitors could use the LEGO bricks and to feel how it is to be an essential part of the protein synthesis - the ribosome themselves.
A little easier to understand and therefore targeted at an even younger audience like primary school students(aged 5-11), was the second aspect of the LEGO protein building. With this exercise, once the protein was completely assembled, it could hold an eraser - a non-LEGO brick. This eraser symbolized our molecule of interest - cortisol. The LEGO build could then be closed keeping the cortisol in place and showing how ligand binding and conformational change work.
Our second main Educational Goal was explaining our project idea through the medium of a short story. The short story was written for all ages and included parts that were more complex and parts that were easier, using many real-life analogies. We aimed to explain the basics of the endocrine system in the human body on the basis of cortisol to everybody starting at primary school level. Following this and a little more advanced, was the description of the glucocorticoid receptor(GR), for middle or high school students. Here we utilized the building of the LEGO proteins and a hand-crafted mailbox as analogy to help even the youngest understand. The last part of the story was about cortisol in stress and Addison's disease, and our project specifically. This part was mostly for high schoolers and adults, but also for some clever children who were able to understand as well.
We provide the whole story here on the wiki in several languages for everybody to read it again. We linked the wiki on the public events and hope parents and teachers can use this to read the story or use it as the basis for educational material for their children again.
All Educational goals were prepared ahead of time for all our events and presented to the correct audience we received at our stands discussions.
Please scroll a little further to read the story in the language selected!
Educational Storytime
The beginning of our Educational Storytime, DetectiMOL - the unexpected delivery of cortisol (NO: Den uforventet leveranse av kortisol),happened when our teammate Marlene Metz, began discussing with our team how to approach the theme of cortisol and cortisol binding and detection to a younger audience. Although different methods were recommended such as using PLUS-PLUS bricks, we decided to work with LEGOs, due to their universal abundance.
Everything began with a simple LEGO building exercise and Marlene and the team's fantasy did the rest.
Following the LEGO build we began envisioning a storyboard that can be taught to a young audience and divided it into three parts, The Problem, The Idea and The Solution. It goes as such.
¿Cómo se regula su cuerpo?
El funcionamiento de un cuerpo está regulado por muchas partes diminutas, demasiado pequeñas para verlas, y en una interacción muy compleja. Esta interacción puede entenderse con un equivalente en nuestro mundo tan visible: El servicio de correos.
El cuerpo está formado por células diminutas que conforman los distintos órganos, y a su vez, los órganos conforman el cuerpo. Imagina tu cuerpo como un país, cada órgano como una ciudad, cada célula como una persona con un trabajo. En esas ciudades celulares la vida cotidiana transcurre día a día, igual que en el mundo exterior donde estamos los humanos. Y como hay tantas ciudades que forman parte del país, tienen que hablar entre ellas para gestionar todo lo que ocurre.
La tarea de comunicación la asume el servicio postal principal, que es el cerebro de tu cabeza. El cerebro también tiene muchas tareas de gobierno, pero aquí nos centramos en el servicio de correos. Tiene que estar en contacto permanente con las ciudades-órgano para saber qué necesitan y cómo ayudarlas. Al mismo tiempo, las ciudades se aseguran de que el país recibe los recursos adecuados.
¿Cómo funciona el servicio postal?
Este servicio postal se conoce entre los científicos como sistema endocrino. La comunicación en este sistema depende de las hormonas. Este proceso es muy similar al envío de una carta. Una de esas hormonas es el cortisol. El cortisol, como una carta, envia el mensaje al cerebro cuando ciertos recursos son necesarios en el cuerpo. Las cartas de cortisol se envían a direcciones específicas con el tipo correcto de buzones, que se llaman receptores. Hay varios receptores que pueden recibir el cortisol y reenviar su mensaje a la célula que posee el buzón receptor. Esos receptores son el receptor glucocorticoide o el receptor mineralcorticoide.
El cerebro, como oficina principal de correos, sabe dónde hacer los pedidos y como ponerse en contacto con otras ciudades (órganos), cuyos habitantes (células) empiezan a trabajar en el pedido. Por ejemplo, los suburbios de los riñones, llamada glándulas suprarrenales, ordenan cortisol.
También está el cambio del día a la noche en el país que es tu cuerpo. Algunas ciudades tienen una vida nocturna más intensa, mientras que otras tienen noches tranquilas. La oficina de correos de tus glándulas suprarrenales tiene un turno nocturno más tranquilo para trabajar. Durante este tiempo las cartas enviadas desde el cerebro son menos numerosas que durante el día. Por la mañana cuando todo el mundo empieza a despertarse y a empezar el día, se envían muchas más cartas del cerebro a las glándulas suprarrenales y se realiza mucho más trabajo, todo el mundo es muy productivo. Al final del día todo el mundo está cansado por el trabajo, quieren hacer una pausa y descansar durante la noche, por lo que la comunicación se cierra. Esto provoca que las cartas de cortisol vuelven a ser menos frecuentes hasta la mañana siguiente.
Este ciclo de muchas letras durante el día y menos durante la noche se denomina «ritmo circadiano», que en lenguaje científico significa «patrón alrededor de un día», lo que significa que el patrón se repite constantemente entre día y noche. Otras hormonas también siguen este ritmo, pero con un patrón diferente porque transmiten otra información importante. Por ejemplo, la melatonina es una hormona que avisa que es hora de dormir y relajarse tras un largo día. Hay mucha melatonina por la noche y menos por la mañana y durante el día.
¿Qué es el estrés y qué tiene que ver con el servicio postal?
A veces hay momentos estresantes. Todo el mundo los tiene y muchas veces hay que realizar un mayor esfuerzo para superarlos. En los momentos de estrés, el cerebro pide muchas más cartas con cortisol porque el país exige más trabajo. Esas cartas específicas se envían a los suburbios de los riñones, las glándulas suprarrenales. Las glándulas suelen ser oficinas de correos locales y específicas que intercambian cartas con la oficina de correos principal del cerebro. Y las glándulas suprarrenales son la dirección correcta para los mensajes de cortisol. El estrés hace que las glándulas suprarrenales produzcan más cortisol, aumentando la productividad de las células receptoras del correo del cortisol.
La enfermedad de Addison y la oficina de correos
En casos raros la oficina de correos en las glándulas suprarrenales se pone en huelga. Eso significa que ya no escriben ni envían las cartas de cortisol, ni siquiera cuando la oficina principal de correos del cerebro les pide amablemente que lo hagan. La huelga puede tener muchas razones y en la mayoría de los casos la huelga conduce a un cierre y clausura de la oficina. Ya no se envía correo. Pero eso es muy peligroso para el país porque necesita que su sistema de comunicación funcione. La gente-células puede no saber qué hacer a una hora especifica y eso perjudica el trabajo de muchas células.
Si eso ocurre, la tarea de enviar cartas de cortisol debe ser asumida por otras personas. Estos «trabajadores adicionales» son medicamentos portadores de cortisol. Estos nuevos trabajadores son buenos en su trabajo en la entrega del correo del cortisol, pero nunca tan eficientes como la oficina de la glándula suprarrenal. No son empleados de la oficina principal de correos y no siguen el ritmo circadiano con tanta precisión, por lo que necesitarían a alguien que supervisara si todo funciona correctamente. De momento, nadie se ha hecho cargo de esta tarea.
El problema, la idea, la solución
Ahora sabemos que en el cuerpo se producen muchas comunicaciones vía correo entre diferentes partes del cuerpo. La oficina principal de correos del cerebro y las oficinas de correos locales de las ciudades de los órganos envían e intercambian muchas cartas-hormonas. Sin embargo, también hemos aprendido que hay ciertas situaciones en las que no todo va sobre ruedas y que tambien importante seguir el ritmo del día y la noche
With this text and story in mind we began our Education journey. The DetectiMOL team participated in different events both at the Science and Technology Museum as well as the University of Oslo to promote the topic of synthetic biology and contributing to teaching people of all ages in our idea of a cortisol detecting patch.
3-Day Science Fair at the Science and Technology Museum in Oslo
Between 19th and 21st of September 2024, DetectiMOL together with the faculty of Medicine, faculty of Odontology and the Pharmaceutical Faculty, participated in a 3-Day Science Fair at the Science and Technology Museum in Oslo. This is an event organized by the Research Council of Norway in collaboration with the faculties of the University of Oslo and the Science and Technology Museum of Oslo.
Day 1 - 19th September 2024
Thursday the 19th of September 2024, the Science and Technology Museum of Oslo had a late night event from 19.00 to 23.00, marketed towards university students and the general adult public. We were invited by the museum, as event guests, to have a preview of our stand and involve the university students or interested adults in our research. .
We involved the museum guests to ask questions and to take part in a LEGO making workshop to explain the different biological mechanisms involved in the process of creating a cortisol detection device and especially how cortisol should bind to the GR.
Day 2 - 20th September 2024
The second day of the Science Fair, Friday the 20th of September 2024, there were 10 public schools from the Oslo Municipality that were invited to the museum. We had a total of 450 elementary, junior high and high school students visit our stand from 10.00 to 15.00.
We began using our Educational Storytime on the stand more to explain our project to the students. Additionally, we invited them to make LEGO builds of the Glucocorticoid receptor(GR) involved in binding cortisol. Not only could students build their own models of a supposed GR, but we also fine tuned our original LEGO build idea and made step by step instructions for the students to follow and work on by our stand. Here we revisited our Educational Goals and presented synthetic biology and our project idea differently depending on the age group, as we had prepared beforehand. The students that finished building our LEGO design, were given a DetectiMOL sticker as a merit for their hard work.
The LEGO build that was shared with the students was divided in two parts that they could work on, Chain A and Chain B, as well as instructions on how to assemble them. In the end the students could see how adding a cortisol, which in this case we showcased by using an eraser to represent a different type of molecule than the amino acids(LEGOs), would cause a conformational change to the overall structure of the GR after binding cortisol and what this means.
Another additional structure that we used for educational purposes on our stand, was the use of a post box and envelopes. The post box illustrated the Glucocorticoid receptor in the body, while the letters constituted the cortisol. The binding of cortisol to GR was illustrated by adding the envelopes in the post box and we explained the need of a cortisol monitoring patch as the supervisor keeping track of the envelopes inside the post box.
Day 3 - 21st September 2024
The last day of the Science Fair was also the busiest for the team. We received approximately 2000 visitors of all ages, ranging from 1st grade to university students and working adults. We used our Educational Storytime for our younger visitors as well as adults with no biology background and invited them to also try their hand in LEGO making. We engaged in deeper discussions of ethics and safety with our older audience and received good feedback on our idea of a wearable cortisol monitoring patch.
