Team:NAWI Graz/Education

EDUCATION


To degree the popularity of iGEM in public, we organized several events and held lectures at different occasions. One of those events was visiting Austrian High Schools to talk about iGEM in general, our project idea and synthetic biology. To make it even more understandable for the students on how genetic engineering works, we performed some experiments with them.

HLW - Wolfsberg

In spring 2017, we visited our first school in Austria, the “HLW Wolfsberg” in Carinthia. This school is a secondary school with the focus on industrial management, but the students of the 5th grade have a specialized course called “genetics”, where they learn everything about genes and DNA technology and all the processes behind. For this reason, the school gave us the opportunity to introduce ourselves and dive deeper into subject with the pupils.

To make it more comprehensible for the students, we prepared a powerpoint presentation. In the course of this presentation, we discussed the iGEM competition - what it is all about and what you have to do to become part of it. After talking about iGEM in general, we introduced them into our project “Colibot” and explained them how we want to create a  robot-bacteria interface. Since the students attended the genetic class, we also discussed the topic genetic engineering, some advantages and disadvantages of its use and the evaluation of potential risks. On one hand, it was important for us to raise awareness for genetic engineering and to engage in prejudices, but on the other hand, we also wanted to hear their opinion and where they see potential applications of genetic engineering in the future.

After the presentation, we prepared an experiment in which we isolated DNA from strawberries and bananas using salt, dish liquid and ethanol. Some of the pupils were very enthusiastic about the isolation process and to see, how easy it could be, generally, to isolate DNA with everyday tools.

Because of the attentiveness and curiosity of the students for all the topics, the presentation was a big success for us. Since natural science isn´t a main focus in that kind of school, we were really impressed by the knowledge of some of the students.

BRG - Kepler

In Autumn 2017, we visited the “BRG Kepler High School” in Graz, Styria. This is also a secondary school with specialized courses in natural science, so we thought it could be another great audience to deepen into the subject.

The procedure was planned the same as at the other school, but this time we got supported by the “NAWI Graz Institution”[link to attribution site] and the “Human.Technology Styria” [link to attribution site] (HTS). The reason why those two institutions supported us was not only to talk about iGEM and our project, but also to show the students some possible fields of studies and what you can do with this kind of education for your future career.

The “NAWI Graz Institute” [link to attribution site] talked about the possible studies students could attend at the Karl-Franzens University and Technical University of Graz, since the institution offers “joint NAWI Graz study programmes” in Bioscience, Chemistry, Earth, Space and Environmental Sciences, Mathematics and Physics, instead of separated ones.

Followed by “Human.Technology Styria” [link to attribution site] presentation, the students were shown the possibilities they have after university and different fields they could work in. Since HTS is an economic initiative focused on strengthening the competitive capabilities of Styrian companies, institutions and scientific bodies working in the field of human technology, we also discussed the newest technological developments in the field of life science and human health care.

In order to evaluate the opinion of the students on the subject of genetic engineering, we have made surveys at the end of our presentations. With the surveys we wanted to find out how the students thought about this topic and whether their opinions changed in the course of the presentations. We were happy to see, that the overall reactions of the students were very positive and that we were able to show them the good and useful possibilities of genetic engineering.

All in all, the schools visits were a great success. We achieved our goals by educating the students on topics like gene technology, biotechnology and synthetic biology, as well as promoting iGEM and talking about our project. Hopefully, we were also able to inspire some of the pupils to pursue a career in natural sciences.

Talking to students in that age can sometimes present some difficulties because of their “I am not interested at all - mood”. For us, it was really impressing on how they paid attention and tried to listen and understand the topics, despite the complexity of the content. No one of us ever did presentations like this in schools before, thus we were very proud that we were able to achieve such good results all together and show them some possibilities for their future career.

“I personally think it is very important to arouse the curiosity of pupils at an early stage, that they understand that one can also achieve a lot from Austria and be part of something big. It is great to see how students contribute to scientific progress” - Silvia Joham (Teacher for Biology and Chemistry at HLW - Wolfsberg).