Team:KULeuven/Workshop

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WORKSHOP DNA- synthetic biology for kids

The team has organized a workshop for children aged 9-11 years old on the 17th of August in Oud-Heverlee. They have explained synthetic biology in a playful way and afterwards the children drew their own visions on synthetic biology and what they would like to create with synthetic biology.

1. MEDIA

The workshop was filmed by ROB TV and this report was recently broadcasted on their network .

2. Protocol to isolate DNA from a tomato

What do we need?

• Tomato
• Salt
• Water
• Detergent
• Ethanol (or whiskey/vodka)
• 3 bowls
• Knife (plastic for the kids)
• A whisk
• Microliter pipet and pipet tips
• Eppendorf tubes
• Filters (coffee filters)
• Funnel

How to isolate DNA?

• Cut a tomato into pieces and put it into a bowl.
• Make a solution of ... (in another bowl)
  • 5 ml Detergent
  • 1 teaspoon of salt
  • 45 ml water
• Add the solution to the pieces of tomato.
• Use the whisk to mix the solution with the pieces of tomato.
• Put the filter in the funnel and pour the tomato - solution mix in the funnel. The filtrate contains DNA.
• To make the DNA visible:
  • Pipet 0,5 ml of the filtrate in an Eppendorf tube
  • Add 1 ml of Ethanol
  • Close the Eppendorf tube
  • Turn the Eppendorf tube with a gentle movement up and down.
• The red color pellet (looks like snot) is DNA.

3. Synthetic biology: what would you create?

4. Personal experience of 'our teachers'

Alice
I was surprised that the children knew a lot about DNA. Due to TV show like CSI, NCIS,… they could already say that with DNA you can identify people. They were pretty excited about science and we had a lot of fun. Doing the experiment was the thing they enjoyed the most and when we asked them to draw what they would create… wauw! It is clear that they even have more fantasy than us. Most of the things they wanted to create were funny, but there were also a few kids who wanted to create something practical e.g. an organism that does their homework and cleans up their room.

This workshop wasn’t only to educate the children. It was also about educating us on how to communicate: Explaining science in an understandable way for people without a background in science is not the easiest thing to do, though it is really important. This was one of our biggest challenges for this workshop, but given the way the children and their mentors responded, we did a good job!

Tom
At first when I walked towards my group, I was kind of scared because I assumed that the children wouldn't be so interested in the basics of synthetic biology or even in science. But when we sat around the table, I was amazed: they knew that 'big smurf, professor Zonnebloem, Barabas and Gobelijn' all were scientists. Then even one child took the DNA helix I brought with me from the table and said 'Wow, this is a DNA helix', I didn't know that when I was 9, so I immediately was impressed and happy. They were very attentive and eagerly wanted to put on a lab coat themselves and start with the extraction of tomato DNA.

I was very pleased with the interest and creativity of these children and really enjoyed giving this workshop. I would immediately do it again! Afterwards, even one of the mentors asked me at which institutes he could study biochemistry, since he found it amazing. Therefore, I think it's a pity that ROB TV only showed children that didn't want to become scientists, since we had a lot of 'positive' feedback from the children.

Katrien
While organizing this event, somewhere inside me there was that little fear of being unable to get the children’s attention. For them, it was an interruption of their summer holiday and I was hoping they wouldn’t feel like they were at school. Luckily the children were very enthusiastic right from the start. When we began the workshop, they all wanted to help and become little scientists. We chose two children as assistants to read the protocol and give the materials when needed and they were all very helpful. While executing the protocol for extracting DNA from a tomato, the children were really exited about the whole project and were very surprised to see the DNA in the Eppendorf tubes. After explaining our E.D.Frosti project, we let them use their imagination and soon after, we got a lot of drawings about what they would do with our project and with synthetic biology in general. I’m very grateful to them for being such wonderful participants at our children’s workshop.