From 2011.igem.org

Human Practice

Introduction

The following three activities were performed in high schools near our university and in ELCAS, a special science course, held by the department of science in Kyoto University, for high school students .

• A specific lecture about synthetic biology and iGEM for the high school students, including high-motivated junior high school students

• Questionnaires among students on synthetic biology. They were asked about their anxiety on issues like genetic modification, their thoughts on the future possibilities of synthetic biology, interests in iGEM and so on

• Introduction on iGEM HS division

Lecture

We went to some high schools around Kyoto University and gave a short introduction on synthetic biology and iGEM, including the attractive points of synthetic biology, the ways of changing living things by reconstructing their genes and activities of other undergraduate iGEM teams. In some high schools, we were able to meet some eager junior high school students. In such cases, we added a brief explanation about biochemistry, especially genes, nucleotide, codon and the basic system of gene expression.(read more...)

Questionnaire

We also carried out some questionnaires on synthetic biology. The questions the students were asked are written in result page. These surveys were performed not only to research the extent of the students’ knowledge of biotechnology and their opinions regarding related ethical issues in this field but also to provoke discussions about synthetic biology among them.(read more..)

iGEM HS division

No matter how hard we try to tell students the immense possibilities of synthetic biology and the pleasure in participating in iGEM, young students will usually get bored unless we show them how to join this wonderful world of synthetic biology. Due to the curriculum in our country, it is rather difficult for high school students to take part in iGEM undergraduate category, so we decided to tell them about the HS division and support students who are interested in it. There will probably be many teams from Japan in the next iGEM HS division.（read more...）