Difference between revisions of "Team:William and Mary/Build Connections"

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.

TThe 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.

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.

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.

Inter-laboratory studies have great implications in both academia research and industry. Comparison of results can not only help determine the characteristics of certain products, but can also validate the test method and determine the source of uncertainty. Synthetic biology aims to achieve predicable gene expression outcomes [1], but challenges for this goal still exist on every level from parts design, circuity complexity to measurement methods. iGEM InterLab study is exactly designed to unravel the source of unpredictability and to quantify the degree of variability [2], the logical of which William and Mary iGEM team shares deeply. We have been an active participator of the InterLab Study since 2015 (the second year William and Mary joined the iGEM family) and we are very honored to be able to continue to contribute this study.

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.

Prior to the meeting, we reached out to the head of the Biology Club, which currently has members from Lafayette high school but not from the other high schools in our area. We asked them if they would be willing to present to the teachers about their club and biology research project, and also expand their reach to include more high school students. They agreed and presented their club to the teachers as a possible resource for students who are enthusiastic about biology.

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.

Inter-laboratory studies have great implications in both academia research and industry. Comparison of results can not only help determine the characteristics of certain products, but can also validate the test method and determine the source of uncertainty. Synthetic biology aims to achieve predicable gene expression outcomes [1], but challenges for this goal still exist on every level from parts design, circuity complexity to measurement methods. iGEM InterLab study is exactly designed to unravel the source of unpredictability and to quantify the degree of variability [2], the logical of which William and Mary iGEM team shares deeply. We have been an active participator of the InterLab Study since 2015 (the second year William and Mary joined the iGEM family) and we are very honored to be able to continue to contribute this study.

Kristin Cosby is an AP Chemistry teacher from Jamestown High School, a nearby school. She is also the head of the science department at her school. One of our contacts at the STEM Education Alliance at the William & Mary School of Education connected us with her during the summer. Kristin kindly visited our lab and met with us during the summer to discuss with us how we could better act as a resource for public school teachers and students in the area. She said she had no idea there were so many science resources available at our college, as they are not publicized to people in the public school system, and was very enthusiastic to work with us in the future. She helped us arrange the small teacher focus group and remained involved in our outreach activities, bringing her son to one of the Bioengineering Speaker Series events!

After meeting Senator Mason in our lab and talking to him about the outreach we do, he was interested in starting a more in-depth collaboration with the local school district. He told us he was impressed with our outreach work and wanted to help make more teachers and students aware of it.

Shortly after our initial meeting, we sent Senator Mason a proposal for our collaboration with teachers and principals. We told him we wanted to act as a resource for teachers based on their needs, whether that was with curriculum planning, teacher workshops, lab visits, or helping to apply for grants. We had a follow-up meeting with Senator Mason to talk more in-depth about how he felt we could help public school teachers in our area. He told us that he felt that teachers could benefit from the resources we mentioned and that he was interested in helping us connect to some of the important people in the local public school system.

After the meeting, he kindly put us in touch with Tami Byron, the K-12 STEM coordinator for the entire Newport News public school system, which has a total enrollment of about 29,000 students and 37 elementary, middle, and high schools.

Inter-laboratory studies have great implications in both academia research and industry. Comparison of results can not only help determine the characteristics of certain products, but can also validate the test method and determine the source of uncertainty. Synthetic biology aims to achieve predicable gene expression outcomes [1], but challenges for this goal still exist on every level from parts design, circuity complexity to measurement methods. iGEM InterLab study is exactly designed to unravel the source of unpredictability and to quantify the degree of variability [2], the logical of which William and Mary iGEM team shares deeply. We have been an active participator of the InterLab Study since 2015 (the second year William and Mary joined the iGEM family) and we are very honored to be able to continue to contribute this study.

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.

Prior to the meeting, we reached out to the head of the Biology Club, which currently has members from Lafayette high school but not from the other high schools in our area. We asked them if they would be willing to present to the teachers about their club and biology research project, and also expand their reach to include more high school students. They agreed and presented their club to the teachers as a possible resource for students who are enthusiastic about biology.

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.