Team:William and Mary/Build Connections
Increasing Awareness of iGEM Activities: Meeting with the Boyle Society
On April 29th, members of the Boyle Society visited the William & Mary Bioengineering Lab, home to our iGEM team. The Boyle Society is a charitable giving society that has an impact on the funding for the scientific research that occurs at our college. Our goals for the event were to present our iGEM project, teach participants molecular and synthetic biology, and impress upon participants the importance of the scientific research that occurs at William & Mary.
Two groups of 25 participants (50 total) each visited the lab for half an hour. We briefly presented iGEM, our project, synthetic biology, and conducted a strawberry DNA extraction activity.
We received generally positive feedback from the participants; many said they were interested in science research at the College and enjoyed being able to do a hands-on activity with us. From our observations, it seemed that we chose the correct technical level of activity for most of the participants. Although we were working with adults, most participants had little to no science background. This meant that we had to adjust our level of explanation for both the activity and our iGEM project. Most of the participants who gave us feedback said that they did not entirely understand the science behind our research but found it to be interesting.
The outreach event went well as we addressed the three goals that we had set for the event. Since it was the first outreach event hosted by the 2017 team, however, there were some organizational challenges. In response, we created an adapted strawberry DNA extraction protocol based on our experience for what worked and what did not. We also made a checklist for how to prepare for the activity that we used in future outreach projects.
Project Description Video
Toward the beginning of our project, we publicized our research using a brief, three paragraph project description. Since our audience included people with varying levels of biology and scientific background, we received mixed feedback on this method. Some people said they understood the research description and they liked the presentation format but others told us that they found it very confusing. Based on this feedback, our team decided to create explanatory materials that were simple, concise, and understandable as a way of explaining our iGEM research to someone with a high school biology background.
We felt that the best format for making an accessible explanation would be a video. In order to accomplish this goal, we collaborated with a high school student to create and edit the video script. In order to make this most useful in the context of Virginia Public Schools, we adapted the materials to respond to Virginia’s Standards of Learning for high school biology students. This ensured that we did not include information that a high schooler in our state would not yet know, as well as aligning the materials to the incentive structure of teachers within the public school system.
After finalizing the script and creating a storyboard for the video, we filmed the drawings, recorded a voiceover, and edited both. We published the video on the W&M iGEM social media accounts, as well as YouTube, and reached about 750 people from these platforms alone. The video also plays on a TV screen outside of our lab, so we have reached many students, professors, and visitors this way.
Our team received a lot of feedback on this video, both online and in person. Everyone who talked to us expressed that the video was an understandable explanation of our project, so we feel that we have accomplished the main goal of producing materials that would be understandable to a general audience with a high school biology education. Often, people stop outside of our lab to watch the video and become interested in talking to our team more about iGEM and our iGEM project, so the video has also had the added benefit of informing members of our college community about the research we do.
To see our final video, click here
Connecting with Students: Camp Launch
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Every summer, the William & Mary School of Education hosts a summer camp for local middle school students to teach STEM, do hands-on activities, and help students think about college opportunities and possible careers. The W&M iGEM team has collaborated with the School of Education in the past to do teaching activities with students, so we reached out and invited students and teachers from the camp to visit our lab.
Since we were working with a community partner, we wanted our goals for the event to reflect theirs. The head of the program emphasized that we should try to get students interested in the field of molecular biology and participating in research in college. Therefore, we approached the event with these goals in mind.
Prior to the event, we met with and received feedback on preliminary plan from the teacher, Deanna Marroletti, who was in charge of the group of students visiting our lab. We learned that the original activities that we had planned were too simplistic for the group. Although the students were in middle school, they were already knowledgeable about the field of biology. Based on her suggestions, we chose three activities to do with the students: a strawberry DNA extraction, gel electrophoresis, and streaking plates with E. coli expressing RFP. While the DNA extraction activity is quite simple, we started with this in order to get everyone in the group to a minimum level of knowledge about the properties of DNA and how scientists use it in a lab. For the gel electrophoresis activity, we made up a scenario and created different DNA samples for students to test via gel electrophoresis (and solve the crime!). During this activity, we talked about lab techniques and how different kinds of researchers can work with DNA in the lab. Lastly, we did the RFP activity from our activity booklet and talked about synthetic biology and lab techniques.
Two groups of 15 students (30 total) each visited our lab for two and a half hours. All the activities went smoothly and the students seemed to enjoy the activities and were eager to answer the questions we asked them about why scientists use the techniques in the lab. The only issue we ran into was that the RFP activity was meant to take half an hour, but it only took about 15 minutes. Luckily the students were interested in the equipment in our lab, so we were able to take the extra time to answer their questions about that.
Overall, the event went well. Students were very interested in the lab techniques and enthusiastic to learn more about synthetic biology. We received written feedback from Ms. Marroletti after the event. Additionally, ten students visited our lab during their free time two days later because they said they thought our research very interesting and they wanted to learn more about synthetic biology and being a student researcher.
Raising Awareness: Engaging with the “Focusing on the Future” Event
The School of Education at our college runs an annual career fair called Focusing on the Future for middle school students who are interested in careers in STEM. After connecting with the School of Education at the beginning of our project, Dr. Kim, the director of pre-collegiate programs in the Center for Gifted Education invited members of our team to give a presentation at this event.
We prepared a short presentation about synthetic biology and how to get prepared for a career in science. We also prepared a hands-on recombinant DNA activity for the students to have them think about synthetic biology.
While we had fun at the event, we were expecting an audience of 8th graders and parents, so we planned with that audience in mind. The audience ended up being mostly 7th and 8th graders and there were no parents. The students all seemed to have varying levels of biology background, as well, so both the presentation and activity were too difficult for some of the students present. If we were to do this event a second time, we would choose an activity that could have been more accessible to a wider audience.
Conversations with Legislators
Over the course of the past year, we have been lucky to have had the opportunity to show Virginia national and state legislators around our lab and increase their awareness and knowledge of the field of synthetic biology, so they can make more informed decisions on policy. Additionally, since we go to a public university, we felt it was important for our state senators to have a better understanding of our research.
It was exciting to act as representatives of our college and talk to legislators. Meeting with Senator Mason and hearing his enthusiasm about our education outreach led us to more seriously consider how we could work with representatives of our community to address their needs.
We also told teachers about resources that we would be able to offer them, such as educational material, teacher workshops, and lab visits for students or teacher training. The teachers then told us about what they would like out of a potential partnership.
They said that although many of the high school teachers were knowledgeable about engineering, biology, and synthetic biology, there are strict rules in place that prevent them from performing most biology hands-on activities and experiments. Additionally, they felt that due to this lack of ability for students to learn through doing the science, many students felt disinterested. The teachers also expressed their concern that students felt disconnected from the teachers due to their age differences and therefore felt that even when the teachers showed enthusiasm about science, it did not translate to the students. The science coordinator also expressed that most of the elementary school science teachers did not actually have scientific backgrounds, and felt uncomfortable teaching about science because of this. Although there was a need for improved biology programs in the high schools, a lot of the problems with science education stems from elementary and middle schools.
We were very surprised to hear this. Prior to the meeting, we had thought that the problems with biology and synthetic biology education stemmed from teachers simply not being familiar with newer advances in the field and that teaching educators about synthetic biology could address the lack of instruction on this subject in classrooms. Additionally, teachers wanted resources for general science education, not just synthetic biology education. This meeting helped us better understand the needs of the community and make informed decisions about our future education outreach.
Making Connections Across the W&M Science Community: Bioengineering Speaker Series
Although the College of William & Mary has various science programs, there currently exists no engineering or bioengineering program. Toward the beginning of our iGEM project, a professor from the Department of Applied Science, who does research on the physical and chemical properties of spider silk for potential synthetic biology applications, met with our PI and was curious about our team’s research. After meeting with him and talking to him about his research, we realized that there are many professors who do research involving synthetic biology and bioengineering that are not connected because they are in different departments. As part of our outreach within our college community, we organized a Bioengineering Speaker Series during the summer for student researchers, professors, and anyone who was interested in learning more about synthetic biology research. We were lucky to host three speakers from the Department of Applied Science and the Biology Department. Each talk was presented at a suitable level for a general audience and was followed by a discussion with the audience. The fact that the audience was from diverse backgrounds of biology, chemistry, and physics led to rich discussions. Although we initially wanted to record the lectures and make them publicly accessible, we felt that in order to create an environment that could foster discussion between students and professors, it would be better to make it as informal as possible. Across the three events, we reached about 95 people. We are continuing the series this fall due to the positive feedback we got from students and professors. We are presenting our own research in early November, and Professor Myriam Cotten from the Department of Applied Science is presenting her research in late November.
Download the flyer to our event here
Collaboration, Networking, and Peer Learning: Participating in the Regional iGEM Meetup
We attended the Mid Atlantic Meetup hosted by the UVA iGEM team and presented our preliminary research. We enjoyed talking to other teams about their research and getting feedback on our project. At the meetup, we met the UMD iGEM team, which helped us initiate a valuable collaboration.
NOVA Labs Project Presentation
At the Mid Atlantic Meetup, we met Richard Conroy, the treasurer of Capital Area BioSpace. He kindly invited us to come give a presentation about our research and synthetic biology at a meetup for members of his lab and the general public.
Two members of our team traveled to Reston, Virginia, to give the presentation. We presented on biological circuits and our past iGEM projects. We also did a short activity on ethics and GE mosquitoes, originally from BostonU iGEM, which we found using our database.
The meetup ended up drawing an audience with diverse scientific backgrounds. Some of those present did biology research; others had backgrounds in engineering and computer science. Many of the members of the audience had not studied biology past high school but had strong science and math backgrounds. It was interesting to give a presentation to such an informed and diverse audience. We ended up focusing more on the biomath and engineering aspects of synthetic biology than we had expected because the audience directed their questions to those areas of our work. Even though we were the presenters, we learned a lot from the scientists in the audience who offered really good interdisciplinary perspectives on our project. At the end, we administered a short survey to get feedback on the activity. For the open-ended questions, we coded responses post-survey.
Women Building Bio
Dr. Saha, our PI, and several members of our iGEM team were invited to be part of a student panel called “Next Generation Inspiration: David vs. Goliath of Synthetic Biology” at the Women Building Bio conference. During the event, we talked about doing synthetic biology research as undergraduates and the outreach that we do through the iGEM program. It was fun to talk to women in the Biosciences industry from across the state, and it was an honor to be included as speakers at this event. Many of the attendees were curious to learn more about our research, and it was also very exciting to connect with women who do research in similar fields.
Girl Scouts Engineering Event
We connected with Kristin Cosby, the head of the science department at Jamestown High School, through our contacts in the School of Education. After our initial meeting with her, she helped us organize a meeting with teachers from various high schools in our local school district. She also invited the K-12 science coordinator from the Williamsburg-James City County public school system. We had a small, informal meeting in our lab to get feedback from teachers about what they need and what we can do for them in our outreach.