Difference between revisions of "Team:Cornell/Engagement"

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                         </p>
 
                         </p>
 
                         <div class="content-subtitle">Reflecting on Past Work</div>
 
                         <div class="content-subtitle">Reflecting on Past Work</div>
                         <p>Outreach has been a major activity of our team for the last several seasons. We always try to provide the best workshops and lessons to students who attend our programs. We thoroughly evaluated our past programs to see what we needed to improve upon for new work that we did. Not only did we reflect on how the programs ourselves, but we read over all of the feedback forms that we had participants fill out at the end of every program. The major points we decided to focus on were:
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                         <p>Outreach has been a major activity of our team for the past several seasons. We always try to provide the best workshops and lessons to students who attend our programs. We thoroughly evaluated our past programs to see what we needed to improve upon for new work that we did. Not only did we reflect on how the programs ourselves, but we read over all of the feedback forms that we had participants fill out at the end of every program. The major points we decided to focus on were:
 
                         </p>
 
                         </p>
 
                             <ul id="bullet-list">
 
                             <ul id="bullet-list">
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                             <li>Creating more hands-on demonstrations and activities to teach
 
                             <li>Creating more hands-on demonstrations and activities to teach
 
                             </li>
 
                             </li>
                             <li>Having presentations broken up with more activities and/or discussion
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                             <li>Breaking our presentations up with more activities and/or discussion
 
                             </li>
 
                             </li>
                             <li>Gauging audiences’ background before the start of the workshop to know whether to emphasize foundational biology concepts or more advanced material
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                             <li>Getting to know about the audience’s knowledge level in biology beforehand for the delivery of more relevant workshop materials
 
                             </li>
 
                             </li>
                             <li>Providing chances within programs for participants to demonstrate and practice what they had learned  
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                             <li>Providing chances within programs for participants to practice what they had learned  
 
                             </li>
 
                             </li>
 
                             </p>
 
                             </p>
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                         <p>Throughout the rest of our outreach we critically reflected on the reactions of participants, participants’ engagement level, and participants’ grasp of new concepts. We continued to collect feedback forms. Creating the best programs requires development, and we decided to strive for continuous improvement.  
 
                         <p>Throughout the rest of our outreach we critically reflected on the reactions of participants, participants’ engagement level, and participants’ grasp of new concepts. We continued to collect feedback forms. Creating the best programs requires development, and we decided to strive for continuous improvement.  
 
                         </p>
 
                         </p>
                        <p>All these perspectives on the mosaic of impacts that urban agriculture and hydroponics has on communities gives a new angle to look at our projects. We have carried this perspective in our efforts to outreach to students and to engage the diverse opinions of people.
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                        </p>
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                       <div class="content-title"><a id="careers">CAREERS EXPLORATION CONFERENCE</a></div>
 
                       <div class="content-title"><a id="careers">CAREERS EXPLORATION CONFERENCE</a></div>
 
                         <p>Every year, 4-H, a global network of organizations dedicated to youth development, sponsors a Career Explorations Conference at Cornell. The conference exposes youth to various academic fields and careers, develops their leadership skills, and gives them experience in a university setting. The theme this year was entrepreneurship. As forefronts of entrepreneurship in a synthetic biology landscape, we created a workshop bridging the gap between synthetic biology and business.  
 
                         <p>Every year, 4-H, a global network of organizations dedicated to youth development, sponsors a Career Explorations Conference at Cornell. The conference exposes youth to various academic fields and careers, develops their leadership skills, and gives them experience in a university setting. The theme this year was entrepreneurship. As forefronts of entrepreneurship in a synthetic biology landscape, we created a workshop bridging the gap between synthetic biology and business.  
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                         </div>
 
                         </div>
 
                       <div class="content-title"><a id="splash">SPLASH! AT CORNELL</a></div>
 
                       <div class="content-title"><a id="splash">SPLASH! AT CORNELL</a></div>
                         <p>Splash! at Cornell is an educational program hosted at Cornell annually, where Cornell students and faculty can come to “teach anything, learn anything.” Cornell students teach short classes to visiting high school students on a topic of their choosing, from immunology to salsa dance. Naturally, it made sense for Cornell iGEM to teach what we are passionate about – synthetic biology! We developed a <a class="link" href="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/2/2b/T--Cornell--SplashPresentation.pdf">curriculum</a> that highlighted interesting aspects of synthetic biology. We taught our students about research techniques and dove into an application by presenting our 2016 project, Legendairy. We concluded with a hands on activity - loading a gel, and a discussion of bioethical issues facing synbio using <a class="link" href="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/3/33/T--Cornell--SplashHandout.pdf">case studies.</a> Looks like our class made a splash!
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                         <p>Splash! at Cornell is an educational program annually hosted at Cornell, where students and faculty can come to “teach anything, learn anything.” Cornell students teach short classes to visiting high school students on a topic of their choosing, from immunology to salsa dance. Naturally, it made sense for Cornell iGEM to teach what we are passionate about – synthetic biology! We developed a <a class="link" href="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/2/2b/T--Cornell--SplashPresentation.pdf">curriculum</a> that highlighted interesting aspects of synthetic biology. We taught our students about research techniques and dove into an application by presenting our 2016 project, Legendairy. We concluded with a hands on activity - loading a gel, and a discussion of bioethical issues facing synbio using <a class="link" href="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/3/33/T--Cornell--SplashHandout.pdf">case studies.</a> Looks like our class made a splash!
 
                         </p>
 
                         </p>
 
                         <div class="image-wrapper">
 
                         <div class="image-wrapper">
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                         <p>These factors made the Great New York State Fair, a thirteen day celebration of New York’s agriculture, entertainment, and technology, the perfect place for Cornell iGEM to reach out to a large and receptive audience. Our aim was to bolster the fun and festivity by exhibiting our hydroponics synthetic biology application, and discussing the myriad of opinions surrounding genetic engineering.
 
                         <p>These factors made the Great New York State Fair, a thirteen day celebration of New York’s agriculture, entertainment, and technology, the perfect place for Cornell iGEM to reach out to a large and receptive audience. Our aim was to bolster the fun and festivity by exhibiting our hydroponics synthetic biology application, and discussing the myriad of opinions surrounding genetic engineering.
 
                         </p>
 
                         </p>
                         <p>Situated at the New York 4H building, we joined a wide range of education and technology exhibits targeting youth of all ages as well as parents. In our time there, we would enthusiastically break the ice by asking fairgoers a simple question, “What does synthetic biology mean to you?”  
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                         <p>Situated at the New York 4H building, we joined a wide range of education and technology exhibits targeting youth of all ages as well as parents. During our time there, we enthusiastically broke the ice by asking fairgoers a simple question, “What does synthetic biology mean to you?”  
 
                         </p>
 
                         </p>
                         <p>We encountered many families who had no idea what that meant. But by discussing and engaging their curiosity with activities from Building with Biology that illustrated synthetic biology as a way to put different pieces together to solve a problem, we were able to describe the essence of synthetic biology. Afterwards we asked them to participate in our photo campaign, called Humans of SynBio.
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                         <p>We encountered many families who had no idea what "synthetic biology" meant. But by discussing and engaging their curiosity with activities from Building with Biology which illustrated synthetic biology as a way to put different pieces together to solve a problem, we were able to describe the essence of synthetic biology. Afterwards we asked them to participate in our photo campaign, called Humans of SynBio.
 
                         </p>
 
                         </p>
                         <p>It was not always a consensus. During some of our conversations, we had fairgoers who shared that genetic engineering were dangerous for human health. Rather than immediately refute them, we listened and facilitated dialogue to resolve misconceptions and hear these various viewpoints.
+
                         <p>It was not always a consensus. During some of our conversations, we had fairgoers who were convinced that genetic engineering is dangerous for human health. Rather than immediately refute them, we listened and facilitated dialogue to resolve misconceptions and hear these various viewpoints.
 
                         </p>
 
                         </p>
 
                         <p>Ultimately, our goal was to engage in discussion with all that came to our booth, who were curious, uncertain, or apprehensive of the prospects of synthetic biology. By the time we left, we had achieved that (We also managed to eat a ton of fried dough!).
 
                         <p>Ultimately, our goal was to engage in discussion with all that came to our booth, who were curious, uncertain, or apprehensive of the prospects of synthetic biology. By the time we left, we had achieved that (We also managed to eat a ton of fried dough!).

Revision as of 17:06, 29 October 2017

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