Team:Delaware/Engagement
Urban Promise
For our team’s outreach we have focused on the small local community. For our first outreach experience on October 5th 2017 four members of our team went to Urban Promise in Wilmington Delaware. Urban Promise is an after school program that works with elementary school students. Our team members taught the kids about biology. They taught the kids about lab techniques, they specifically focused on how to plate bacteria. In order to be both informative and fun they set up and completed a painting activity with the kids. They set up cups of paint, that served as the bacteria and gave the kids plates which served as the plates of agar that people use in the lab to plate bacteria. The kids used straws to transfer the paint from the cups to the plates. Then the kids were able to spread the paint around, as if they were plating real bacteria.
The Tatnall School
On Friday October 27, 2017 the University of Delaware iGem team held our second outreach event. Two members of our team went to The Tatnall School in Wilmington, Delaware one of which is an alumna. The team members presented to the high school’s Biomedical club. The presentation covered information pertaining to scientific research in college. More specifically, we gave a presentation which encompassed explaining what iGem is, what to expect when studying biology in college, and our team’s current research. After the presentation the students asked a variety of questions pertaining to our team’s current project and advise for how to succeed in college.
University of Virginia Mid-Atlantic Meetup
Over the summer a portion of the team traveled down to UVA to present our project in front of five other teams: William and Mary, University of Maryland, UNCA, UVA, and University of Georgia. We collaborated with other teams by answering questions and brainstorming ideas about how our project correlates to others. Here we also learned about medal requirements needed for participating in iGEM as well as the potential and opportunities that come with being an iGEM team. After the group presentations we heard from professionals in the science field who later in life took their iGEM projects and turned them into businesses. THis opportunity was one of the most inspiring events that our team attended because it got us motivated and excited for the future of iGEM at the University of Delaware.
