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.

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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.

Original LEGO build, made in the common room of the science library at the University of Oslo, on a sunny day in June.

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.

Hvordan fungerer kroppen din?

Kroppens funksjon kontrolleres av mange deler, så små at vi ikke kan se dem med våre egne øyne. Disse delene samarbeider på mange forskjellige måter, men vi er mest interessert i hormonene våre og liker å kalle dem for postvesenet til kroppen!

I kroppen vår har vi et hjerte, lunger, en hjerne og mange andre deler som kalles organer. Disse består av enda mindre deler, nemlig celler; hjertet består av hjerteceller, lunger av lungeceller, hjernen av hjerneceller og så videre. Forestill deg kroppen som et land, organene som byer og at cellene er innbyggere med jobber viktige for den byen. For at et land skal fungere må byene også samarbeide, men da må de også kunne snakke med hverandre – for eksempel ved å bruke postvesenet.

Hjernen er det sentrale postkontoret i kroppen. I et land kan byer sende meldinger til det sentrale postkontoret og det kan sende meldinger tilbake til byene. Hjernen må dermed hele tiden ha kontakt med organbyene for å vite hva de trenger og hvordan de kan samarbeide.

Så hvordan fungerer postvesenet?

Forskere kaller denne posttjenesten for det endokrine systemet, meldingene (som vi kan tenke oss som brev) kalles for hormoner. Et av disse hormonene er kortisol.

Et kortisol-brev gir beskjed om at det er en mangel på ressurser i kroppen. De sendes ut til egne postkasser med bestemte adresser, vi kaller disse postkassene for reseptorer. Flere slike reseptorer kan ta imot kortisol og videreføre meldingen til postkassens eier, nemlig cellen. De to reseptorene som tar imot kortisol, er glukokortikoidreseptoren og mineralkortikoidreseptoren. Ved hjelp av adressene til reseptorene kan hjernen sende brev med spesielle bestillinger til ulike byer (organene), innbyggerne (cellene) tar imot beskjeden og jobber med bestillingen. Når hjernen bestiller kortisol blir meldingen tatt opp i nyrenes egne postkontor, nemlig binyrene.

Som i Norge (og alle andre land) avhenger jobben til innbyggerne i ulike byer av om det er natt eller dag. Noen byer jobber masse om natten, andre er mer aktive om dagen. Postkontoret i nyrene: binyrene, får ikke så mange bestillinger om natten og er derfor ikke så aktivt på det tidspunktet. På morgenen blir det derimot sendt mange bestillinger fra hjernen og innbyggerne (cellene) i binyrene får veldig mye å gjøre. Fordi innbyggerne får så mye å gjøre om dagen, er de på slutten av dagen slitne, og de må hvile over natten. Da sendes det færre bestillinger fra hjernen og det blir dermed sendt færre kortisolbrev rundt om i kroppen. Denne syklusen der mange brev blir sendt om dagen, og færre brev sendes om natten kalles døgnrytmen.

Mange forskjellige brev med mange forskjellige bestillinger følger også døgnrytmen, men hvor mange som sendes, og når i døgnet kommer an på bestillingen. For eksempel har vi melatonin som er hormonet som gjør deg trøtt, mange flere slike meldinger blir sendt på kvelden enn om morgenen og i løpet av dagen.

Hva er stress og hvordan er det koblet til posten?

Noen ganger blir det stressende tider. Alle har dem og for å komme gjennom dem må det gjøres mye mer arbeid. I stressende tider etterspør hjernen mye mer kortisol brev fordi landet krever mer arbeid. Disse spesifikke brevene sendes til nyreområdet i forstaden, binyrene. Kjertler er vanligvis lokale og spesifiserte postkontorer som brevveksler med hovedpostkontoret i hjernen. Og binyrene er den rette adressen for kortisol brevene. Stress gjør at binyrene produserer mer kortisol, noe som øker produktiviteten til de mottakende cellene i kortisol post kontoret.

Addisons sykdom og poststreiken

Noen mennesker har en spesiell sykdom kaldt Addison’s sykdom. I dette tilfellet fungerer ikke binyrene som de skal, vi kan tenke oss at postkontoret går ut i streik. Innbyggerne vil da slutte med å skrive beskjedene sine, og det vil ikke lenger sendes ut noe post. Som du kanskje husker, bruker organene denne posten til å snakke med hverandre, og uten den vil de ikke lenger kunne samarbeide. Et land med byer som ikke snakker med hverandre fungerer ikke bra som et land og personer med Addison’s sykdom trenger derfor å få kortisol fra ved hjelp av medisiner.

Hvis det skjer, må oppgaven med å sende kortisolbrev overtas av utenforstående. Disse utenforstående er medisiner som bærer kortisol. De utenforstående er allerede ganske flinke til å levere kortisolpost, men aldri så flinke som binyrekontoret. De er ikke ansatt av hovedpostkontoret og følger ikke døgnrytmen like nøyaktig, så de trenger noen til å overvåke at alt går som det skal. Foreløpig er det ingen som har tatt på seg denne oppgaven.

Problemet, ideen, løsningen

Nå vet vi at det foregår mye postkommunikasjon i kroppen. Mange hormonbrev sendes og utveksles av hjernens hovedpostkontor og de lokale postkontorene i organbyene. Men vi har også lært at det finnes situasjoner der ikke alt går på skinner, og at det er viktig å følge rytmen mellom dag og natt.

Problemet: : I noen situasjoner er ikke produksjonen og utsendelsen av kortisolbrev perfekt. Under stress er det greit at det produseres mer kortisol for å øke cellenes arbeid Men konstant stress og dermed konstant kortisolpost som ber cellene om å gjøre mer og mer arbeid, er veldig utmattende for dem. Det kan føre til at cellene slutter å gjøre jobben sin, og kroppen blir syk. Et annet tilfelle kalles Addisons sykdom, der postkontoret i binyrene er stengt, slik at kommunikasjonen som er avhengig av kortisol, stopper opp. Dette er også veldig farlig for kroppen, så vi mennesker her ute må gripe inn med medisiner som tar over jobben, men dette er aldri like bra som binyrene. I begge tilfeller ville det være bra å ha noen som overvåker mengden kortisol som for tiden sendes gjennom kroppen - ikke for mye som ved stress, ikke for lite som ved Addisons sykdom.

Det er ideen: Gruppen vår prøver å løse dette problemet ved å lage en slik overvåker. En slik enhet vil forbinde oss her ute med landet der inne. På denne måten kan vi vite hvor mye kortisol som går rundt i kroppen: dersom vi ser at vi har for mye kan vi prøve å redusere stresset, dersom vi ser at vi har for lite kan vi ta medisiner med kortisol.

Løsningen på problemet: Vi prøver å lage et plaster som vi kan stikke gjennom huden. På innsiden av plasteret vil vi feste postkasser for kortisol: glukokortikoidreseptorer. Avhengig av hvor mange av postkassene på plasteret som er fylt med kortisolbrev, kan vi beregne hvor mange brev som sendes gjennom kroppen.

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.

Lego model teaching — The LEGO model teaching session at the Science Fair, where students learned about biological mechanisms by building models.

Science square stand — The team interacting with visitors at the Science Square stand during Day 2 of the event.

Lego construction — The LEGO construction showcasing the assembly process for the students, illustrating how cortisol affects the GR structure.

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.