Educational Seminar
We know how important it is for our youth to be educated about topics related to synthetic biology because it will soon take over our world by story. Therefore, our team presented our project, Toxoplasma GONEdii, to students at our high school, Rancho Bernardo High, in the form of an educational seminar. We had several people who came to our seminar at school. During the seminar, we presented an in-depth overview of what iGEM, and its aim to further synthetic biology. In our presentations, we explained what Toxoplasma Gondii is, its relevance to our community, and what students and the community can do for prevention. We also focused on explaining our team’s approach to this problem, and what measures we have taken as a team, helping our community become more aware of this problem. By educating our fellow peers about this disease and preventative care, we hope that this impacts our future generation’s decisions positively. In addition, our educational seminar allowed our peers to be cognizant of their interactions with cats and other mammals that are more prone to the parasite infection. In addition, if they choose to own a cat in the future or if they currently own one, they will take measures to protect their cat from being infected with T. Gondii. We also made our participants excited about synthetic biology and its futuristic applications. This, hopefully, encourages more people at our school to join iGEM in the next few years.
Here are the slides that we presented:
ToxoTales
After seeing the results from our survey, we learned that a majority of people in San Diego did not know about Toxoplasma Gondii or were not well-informed about the parasite. Therefore, our team decided to educate others and raise awareness for Toxoplasma Gondii, by posting information about the parasite for a week. Therefore, we created “ToxoTales,” a week-long education information event where we made posts on our socials that contained informative facts about Toxoplasma Gondii and how to prevent it from spreading to your cats and to you. We know that social media platforms are utilized by many people and we wanted to expand our influence as much as possible. Our posts will remain on the internet forever, so even in the future our information will last and continue to educate people about T. Gondii for a long period of time. In addition, we realize the importance of educating a wide variety of age groups, genders, etc. Instagram and Nextdoor are the easiest way to reach the largest group of people.
Here are the posts on our instagram:
We created a video with the goal of continuing to educate others about Toxoplasma Gondii and synthetic biology. Our video mainly focused on our project, but provided context on the problem caused by Toxoplasma Gondii. By putting our video for free on the global platform, Instagram, we wanted it to be accessible by everyone, and we hope that it can garner attention and be an effective tool for educating others and bringing awareness about T. Gondii. With Instagram reels, our message about Toxoplasma will stay online forever, meaning more people will be able to view it in the future as well. Currently, our reel has received over 500 views which accomplished our team’s goal to reach a big audience with our information. You can view our posts and our video on our instagram. The link to our page is in the footer below.
Summer Camp
Overview
One of the most important aspects of human practices is reaching out to our community and cultivating a path of education in science. Our team focused on this aspect by hosting our first ever Synthetic Biology Summer Camp. We ran a one-week long virtual camp from Monday through Friday with each class being approximately an hour and thirty minutes. A total of 32 students from grades 5th to 8th attended. Due to the fact that this was a virtual camp, we were able to get students not just from San Diego, but from other parts of the United States as well. Keeping in consideration the monetary struggles of several families, we also made our summer camp free of cost, so more youth would have the opportunity to attend and enrich themselves in the world of biology.
Throughout the week, we focused on molecular biology, synthetic biology, lab safety, and understanding the fundamentals of research. We gave small presentations on each topic and prepared for the students online simulations and games relating to each topic. As we ran the camp virtually, we were limited in the activities that we could provide for the students; however, we were able to present two live labs on zoom: DNA extraction and gel electrophoresis. After each demonstration, we provided the students with clear instructions to perform both labs at home safely. For the last two days of the camp, the students chose a research paper to read and analyze with a group. They were required to present their findings to us through slides and we did a short Q & A session for each group after. We mentored each group throughout both days, and when students presented their slides, we asked questions and gave advice on improvement. This way, students were able to learn more about the research process and get exposure to reading research articles.
Day 1
We started our first day with introductions and ice-breakers so all of our students can get to know each other and have a chance to interact with each other. We then continued with an introductory presentation covering the basics of molecular biology, DNA, and the basics of synthetic biology. We taught students about the basic macromolecules and the different types o0f cells so they can understand the building blocks of life. After that, we explained the importance of DNA and how the base pairs bind to each other. Going over the role mutations play and their significance was also a key part of our lesson on the first day. Our goal was for the students to understand the fundamentals of molecular biology before we go into experiments and situations later in the week. At the end of our lesson, we kept time set aside for a question answer session where students could discuss any doubts and questions they had.
Here are the slides for our first day of camp:
Day 2
Our first presentation for the second day was about lab safety. Our team wanted to expose the importance of lab safety to our students as they will be eventually doing experiments in their science classrooms in their highschool years and beyond. By teaching them the importance of lab safety, we made our students more aware about the significance of safety, thus ensuring that they have a proper understanding of lab safety protocol from a young age.
Our second lesson was about delving more into synthetic biology. We started by going over the wide applications of synthetic biology to our world and then going over a simple at-home protocol for DNA extraction. One of our team members had shown a live demonstration of the DNA extraction protocol and we advised the students to try it at home safely with parental supervision in their own time.
Here are the slides for our second day of camp:
Day 3
The third day started with a presentation about reading literature about scientific research. We first started by going over the scientific method and the different parts of the research paper. As research articles are daunting to read, especially for the first time, we gave them tips about how to determine what articles are useful and platforms where they can find reliable sources. After that, we introduced the group research project to the students where they would make a short presentation about the article’s research.
After that, one of our team members did a live demonstration of gel electrophoresis using dyes as samples. We explained the importance of gel electrophoresis and its real-world applications. We then linked an online gel electrophoresis interactive simulation so that students would be able to somewhat experience doing the experiment themselves. We even provided them a protocol with clear and safe instructions and advised them to try the actual experiment at home under parental supervision.
Here are the slides for our third day of camp:
Day 4
Students worked in groups for 3-4 people on the article research project all throughout day four. We had them work in groups so they could collaborate on various ideas and interpretations. Our goal was for them to enhance their team working abilities along with learning more about the subject matter they were researching. Members from our team were present all throughout the meeting assisting students with help or questions they had.
Day 5
On our last day, all groups presented their work to everyone and we held a question and answer session so students could practice answering questions about research. We also then opened the floor for any questions other students had about the presentations or any doubts they wanted to discuss.
This summer camp allowed us to communicate our knowledge and experience in the field of science to the next generation of research. Our team is firm in its belief that educating younger generations about science is key towards getting more people involved in ground-breaking research that could impact the world in a positive way. We stimulated their minds with complex questions and forced them to think beyond the given facts. Our team highlighted the importance of questioning and observing as pivotal qualities that any research must have. We are confident that our summer camp had turned out to be a constructive complement to their daily school education.
Literature Review Book
Creating a project requires an abundance of research, and we understand it is time-consuming. Our team has created a lit review book that contains a detailed summary on the articles, research papers, and other sources that helped us throughout our project focused on Toxoplasma Gondii, so that future iGEM teams and researchers who are interested in working with Toxoplasma Gondii can have a reference to start from.We wrote shortened summaries and key points from 20 papers, which we deem as enriching to iGEM teams who are looking for the most comprehensive and relevant information out of the boundless expanse of T.Gondii related literature.
CCA X RBHS X DNHS X WVHS Youtube Channel
We collaborated with CCA, DNHS, and WVHS iGEM team to create a videos on Youtube about synthetic biology and our projects for those who are hoping to get into the lab and do synthetic biology work. Our videos covered our project and our implementation for this year and basic synthetic biology practices. Although the information we covered was pretty basic, they are crucial to know for anyone working in synthetic biology, and we hope that this video benefits any beginning iGEM teams who are starting out in the lab.
Check out our Youtube Channel