Outreach and Collaborations
iGEM Outreach:
http://openwetware.org/wiki/IGEM_Outreach
Exploring Synthetic Biology: High School Curriculum
This curriculum is tailored to high school students with a strong background in biology and are currently enrolled in an advanced biology or biotechnology course at their high school. Access to a biotechnology lab is preferred.
A) Meeting One: An Introduction to Synthetic Biology
[Ready-to-use Presentation: http://prezi.com/bqt1cvldirvh/exploring-synthetic-biology-part-1/]
- Explain our reason for coming in and talking to the class
- Introduce the team and iGEM competition
- Ask some questions to the class (What interests you about biology? If you could create an organism to do anything you want, what would you make? etc.)
- Introduction to Synthetic Biology
- What is synbio?
- Why is it a relatively new field?
- Biobricks – what they are and why they’re useful
- Other resources (Journals, Scitables, etc)
- Talk about the High School division of the iGEM competition
- Talk about creating a biotechnology journal club that could turn into an iGEM team
B) Meeting Two: Ethics and Safety in Synthetic Biology
- Cornell University’s Ethics in SynBio Lesson Plan (found on the Open Wet Ware iGEM Outreach website)
- Show the Colbert Report Interview - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks as a multimedia aspect of the presentation [http://media.mtvnservices.com/player/prime/mediaplayerprime.1.9.2.swf?uri=mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:267542&type=normal&ref=None&geo=US&group=entertainment&&CONFIG_URL=http%3a%2f%2fmedia.mtvnservices.com%2fpmt%2fe1%2fplayers%2fmgid%3acms%3aitem%3acomedycentral.com%3a%2fconfig.xml%3furi%3dmgid%3acms%3aitem%3acomedycentral.com%3a267542%26type%3dnormal%26ref%3dNone%26geo%3dUS%26group%3dentertainment%26]
- Introduction to the iGEM website, Parts Registry, and Open Wet Ware.
- Talk about Lab Safety in SynBio
C) Meeting Three: Lab Techniques in Synthetic Biology:
- Ask students what kind of techniques they’ve used in their school labs during class
- Introduction to Basic Techniques in SynBio
- Lab demonstration
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Outreach in Practice
8/12/11: Bioscience High School, our first high school partner that we presented our Exploring Synthetic Biology curriculum to on August 12th, has started their own iGEM team!
9/12/11: Bioscience High School has decided their iGEM project for the year
9/26/11: Second meeting with Bioscience High School. Met with their iGEM team and introduced basics of synthetic biology, the standard registry of biological parts, and gave them advice and feedback on their project and resources they can use to get started
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