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Team:Washington/Outreach
From 2011.igem.org
Community Outreach
During the off season we took had the opportunity to share our project with our community at both the university level and the K-12 level. The UW Undergraduate Research Symposium, UW Engineering Discovery Days, and Young Scientist Week took place during the spring.
UW Undergraduate Research Symposium
During the spring, last year's team participated in the annual University of Washington Undergraduate Research Symposium. This was the first time the iGEM team had participated in this event. The university sponsored event had over 700 student participants and 3500 attendees. The 700 students come from all disciplines, not just the sciences and the attendees include faculty, mentors and our peers. During the symposium, we were able to tell our community about the basics of iGEM and synthetic biology as well as walk them through last year's award winning work. We found this event to be important in rooting the University of Washington iGEM team in our school's undergraduate research community.
UW Engineering Discovery Days
Sponsored by the University of Washington College of Engineering, the Engineering Discovery Days is an opportunity for undergraduates to introduce K-12 students to the vast world of engineering. The Engineering Discovery Days functions like an open house with booths spread about campus and is split into two days: day one for elementary and middle schoolers, day two for high schoolers. We partnered with the department of Bioengineering to teach children how synthetic biology works through an activity where the kids fill a balloon (representing a cell) with a ribbon (representing a plasmid). On day two, we introduced high schoolers to the basics of synthetic biology through a poster session with last year's project. Through this event we were able to engage with our local K-12 community and teach them about iGEM.
