Team:Bulgaria/researchers-night
The European Researchers’ Night 29.09.2017
European Reaseacher‘s night at the TechPark was one of 300 other exibitions in Europe in the scientific field. We showed the public a part of our project and a couple of eye-catching experiments to spark the inner scientist in the younger audience. We also conducted a survey which had a as goal to understand how much Bulgarians are acknowledged in the synthetic biology field.
One of our best experiences was getting to know Alex with the laboratory. Alex won first place in our drawing competition named “How do you imagine a bacteria looks like?” We held this contest during the European Researchers Night event. His drawing gathered the biggest support on our Facebook page. The participants’ number was extremely high, but nevertheless Alex won a deserved first place! This competition gave us the opportunity to introduce Synthetic Biology to the youngest and spark their interest towards this exciting scientific field. Also, we spread the idea of iGEM among the visitors and explained our project to everyone.
Alex’s prize was the unique opportunity to visit our laboratory and to make his first steps into science. Fully equipped and pumped with excitement he was ready to enter our world. Alex became a real scientist for a day and helped us with our tasks. We showed him everything we are working with starting from the laboratory glassware until the PCR. Alex learned how to use important laboratory tools such as pipette, vortex, electronic pipettor, centrifuge, shaking incubator, etc. Our little scientist demonstrated again his talent by drawing for us on a petri dish. He got the chance to see the famous experiment Elephant Toothpaste. He was most amazed by the prepared slides we showed him – housefly’s leg, onion epidermis, human blood, wood stem and many more.
Alex was stunned with his science experience and he told us he couldn’t wait to tell his friends about it. We hope he will visit us again ready to learn more.
