Team:LMU-Munich/Human Practice/School Project

From 2011.igem.org


Our school project

In principle we have the same objectives as for our workshop. Our goal is to encourage as many students and people as possible to think about synthetic biology. After the seminar, the participants should be aware of chances and risks imposed by new applications. Hopefully, ideas for dealing with safety and security will come up. At best, they will reflect on ethic issues as well.



The P-Seminar at Bavarian Schools


Since 2010 students of secondary schools in Bavaria (federal state in Germany) have a new course during their two last school years. The so-called P-Seminar is a project based seminar that is supposed to encourage self-based research as well as group work. The project work is accomplished with the help of external partners such as public authorities, social and cultural institutions as well as research institutes or universities.

The work includes three stages as shown in the following table:


Outline P-Seminar
Defintion and planning (12 weeks)
  • Definition of project/s
  • Arrangement of work groups
  • Definition of objectives
  • Clarification of resources
  • Identification of milestones
Project Work (36 weeks)
  • Work group meetings
  • Meetings with teacher and external partner
  • Independent team work
  • Presentation of intermediary results
Presentation and evaluation (12 weeks)
  • Presentation of results for school or external audience
  • Creation and discussion of individual seminar portfolios
  • Postprocessing (achievement of objectives, analysis of project work)


Since cooperation with external partners is desired by the schools, we collaborate with schools to create a P-Seminar Synthetic Biology. The aim is not to make students think synthetic biology is always good, but rather to encourage them to think about possible risks and chances of synthetic biology. The impact of the project will be duplicated by the work of the students, i.e presentations, human practice projects etc.

Bild schulproject.png


Possible Projects/ Sub-projects


Here we show some projects that could be carried out by the students. Many more are possible.

  • Preparing discussions for other courses/grades (i.e religion, social studies, ethics or biology classes)concerning safety, security and ethics
  • Designing a homepage about the school project
  • Cloning Procedure -> Understanding the procedure, planning and excecution
  • Generate a movie about one topic concerning synthetic biology
  • Creating either a board game or a computer game as a possible information tool



P-Seminar Synthetic Biology


There are many options for a P-Seminar Synthetic Biology. Here we show a possible seminar structure we already discussed with some teachers from two different schools in Munich. Due to the school summer break we weren't able to start a seminar yet.


Outline P-Seminar Synthetic Biology
Defintion and planning
  • Basic knowledge in genetics and genetic engineering is imparted via group work and presentations
  • A short introduction to synthetic biology, as well as to iGEM will be given
  • Work groups interested in different sub-projects will be arranged.
  • A mentor from the iGEM team is assigned to each sub-project
Project Work
  • Work group meetings with mentor
  • Independent team work
  • Presentation and discussion of intermediary results with all students
  • Incorporation of project results into iGEM competition
Presentation and evaluation
  • Presentation of results on iGEM team wiki and for different audiences
  • Creation and discussion of individual seminar portfolios
  • Postprocessing (achievement of objectives, analysis of project work) with mentors




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