Difference between revisions of "Team:CCA San Diego/HP/Silver"

Revision as of 23:51, 1 November 2017

Human Practices: Silver

iGEM Summer Camp

Our Outreach team simultaneously held two one-week long summer camps in both genetics & environmental science and physics for elementary to middle school students. We taught the students concepts pertinent to everyday lab work, reinforced with hands on activities, experiments, and projects. Furthermore, we taught the students fundamental biotechnology techniques, such as micropipetting, gel electrophoresis, serial dilution, growing bacteria in petri dishes, and PCR. In the physics camp we delved into concepts, such as energy, forces, light, heat, and kinetics. As a result of this camp we increased publicity of our team, project, and the field of synthetic biology as well as increasing exposure to advanced biotechnology techniques for younger students who did not have this opportunity at their own schools. We received much positive feedback from the students, and many of then expressed interest in attending another camp and in joining the iGEM team as high schoolers! We expand more about our camp and other education events under the Education & Public Engagement page.

Safety first! Having the students identify the parts of the iGEM Biosafety image that are not safe.

Demonstrating to the students the characteristics of gel as well having a fun contest promoting team-building!

Writing observations for our lab project that lasted all 5 days of camp - the purpose of the lab was to determine which of four chosen environments mung beans grow the best in.

All the students in the Genetics and Environmental Science camp looking at how placing leaves underneath a strong light for a few hours changed how the leaves look.

Teaching the students how to use a micropipette with a 96-well plate to make their own designs with colored water.

Building an egg drop contraption with the students in the physics camp.

After one long week of two camps, all the students come together in a group photo.

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Community Survey

After one of our library STEM day events, several members of our team surveyed local community members in a Cardiff-by-the-sea market area on their opinions/pre-existing knowledge about genetic engineering. This opened a lot of interesting conversations such as discussions of the general public perception of controversial topics such as GMOs, or sparking interest in the future that Synthetic Biology holds. Coincidentally when we were talking to many people within the market area we met a man whose job was to clean oil spills (he talked about the majority of techniques used, such as the use of sponges) and from there we were more eager on meeting with companies and hear how our project could be directly implemented or would better be appreciated by someone in the field. Thus, we not only invoked public opinions but also discovered new ways we could make our project a reality in application and implementation!

We set up stations; they were lab safety, extracting DNA from strawberries, DNA modeling, and a visual demonstration of our project that included an oil presentation and oil over water demonstration (teaching a bit of chemistry background). We received a myriad of positive feedback: "I know I want to be a scientist and this just shows how much fun science is". It was so rewarding that we could inspire future young scientists! More on the Education and Public Engagement Page.

In an effort to bring the ideas we tested at the previous STEM Day, we wanted to bring it to a larger audience and in a more organized way. As such, we contacted the local elementary schools and had the opportunity to set up an assembly-style presentation at Torrey Hills Elementary School. With more than 100 6th grade students and their four respective teachers as our audience, we were faced with the unique challenge of delivering our message on an unprecedented scale. We chose to present primarily on the concept of DNA, which had yet to be introduced to the sixth graders in class. We used play-doh and pipe cleaners as models for DNA and discussed how our project modified the DNA of bacteria to help solve oil spills. We ultimately hope to have introduced the sixth graders to new ideas while challenging the teachers to include synthetic biology in their lessons as a more present-day scientific innovation.

Reuben H Fleet Science Center

In a collaboration with the Tinkerer’s Club, at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, an event that allows young children to “tinker” with science and engineering, we talked about synthetic biology and the detrimental effect of oil spills on the environment to any children and adults who were interested. The children who stopped by our tables are all interested in science, and we explained to them what synthetic biology is and what they can do to further understand it. At the first table, we talked about safety and what needs to be done in a lab to be cautious. For example, we had the kids identify what aspects of the iGEM lab safety image is. We also explained some aspects of laboratory procedure and how important it is to calculate exact values of different substances. At another table, we allowed children to dip a bird feather into some oil, so that they could see how bird’s body parts are restricted when they are surrounded by crude oil. In addition, we had two stations where we talked about DNA and its structure: the matching game station and the DNA modelling station. At the matching game station, we had children match up base pairs to understand the components of DNA. At the DNA modelling station, we let children build a double helix with toothpicks and marshmallows.

Synthetic Biology Kits

Our team decided that we want to package the lessons that we created so that we wouldn't be the only ones spreading our ideas. We met up with some of the individual teachers, including the department head of the local middle school, and discussed how they might incorporate synthetic biology as a concept into their curriculum. We hope to spread our message into the community in a sustainable way so that once iGEM 2017 ends, our project will leave a lasting impact in the minds of local students interested in science. Hopefully we can help make synthetic biology a bigger part of science classes in San Diego starting from younger ages.

The head of the science department at our local middle school engaged and excited about how she will implement these labs into her class curriculum.

The boxes we organized for the science department at a local middle school, Pacific Trails Middle School.

George explaining to the head of the science department at Pacific Trails Middle School, Ms. Yamamoto, how the lab materials in the boxes will help the middle school curriculum.

Ms. Yamamoto was impressed by how specific our lab procedures were. "I know the seventh graders will love doing experiments put together by high school students!"

"I am super excited about your project and your outreach efforts!"
- Ms. Yamamoto, head of Pacific Trails Middle School science department

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Beach Clean-Up Day

A group of our team members and friends went to the Torrey Pines Beach and spent an afternoon picking up trash in an effort to make our San Diegan beach even more beautiful and clean for the public.This was a great event to bring everyone together and enjoy our summer day together We obtained almost 100 pounds of trash and received compliments and questions about our iGEM team and the iGEM competition. We actually learned a lot about the major pollutants of the beaches just by picking up trash that day. As expected we found that most trash was small plastics or plastic bottles.

Members of our cleanup!

Group records of the amount and types of trash picked!

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email igemcca@gmail.com Canyon Crest Academy iGEM 2017 CC;