Team:Groningen/HP/Silver

Public Engagement

MISSING: HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS, HONOURS STUDENTS, RATHENAU, RIVM KENNISPARADE, RIVM GAME, SCHOLIERENACADEMIE

On Tuesday the 16th of May 2017 the 17th edition of the Netherlands Biotechnology Conference (NBC-17) was organized by the Dutch Biotechnology Association (NBV). During this day, 135 professionals and students working in the biotechnology work field were connected to each other and informed during several interactive sessions and keynotes about the latest developments in their work field. Here, we gave a pitch about this years’ Groningen iGEM project and were allowed to present our poster together with other Dutch iGEM teams! This years’ Maakfestival was held at the Groninger Forum and provided Dutch manufactures – in the broadest sense – who are living in the north of the Netherlands with the opportunity to excite teens about diverse technical projects. We had our own iGEM booth with various attributes from the laboratory, such as (properly sealed) Escherichia coli bacteria with Green Fluorescent Protein and talked about synthetic bacteria to interested people from every age group. Participants were invited to write their own opinion on bacteria, ranging from ‘cute’ to ‘useful’. Besides that Joana gave a short talk about iGEM and synthetic biology in one of the ‘maker talks’. Sometimes, we were even surprised what some children already knew about bacteria. In the end we were really excited to introduce others to the fascinating world of synthetic biology. The Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute (GBB) is the centre for biomolecular sciences at the University of Groningen. We were invited to give a presentation of our project and show our poster in the poster sessions. During the event we got the opportunity to explain our project to other researchers from the university.

We attended the 12th LAB Symposium in Egmond aan Zee on the 28th of August. This is a yearly one week event about Lactic Acid Bacteria. Thanks to the organising committee we were able to attend the symposium for one day with three people of the team. This was a really great experience. It gave us the opportunity to present our poster during the poster sessions and to talk to researchers who are specialized in working with CRISPR-Cas, bacteriophages and Lactococcus lactis.

We contacted Richel Bilderbeek to give us some tips about preparing lessons for children from 10 to 12 years old. He is highly experienced in educating 7 till 18 year-olds. We are working together with the Scholieren Academie to educate kids. The general goal is informing the kids about the university. What do students do? What am I, a molecular biology student, doing in a laboratory? The Scholieren Academie wants to start this project, because research has shown that kids from the eastern part of the province Groningen, choose less for higher education. By starting really early with informing these kids about the possibilities of the university, the Scholieren Academie hopes that children will choose more often for higher education after primary school. We went to some schools to give a guest lecture. A few days later, the children came to the lab to do some experiments themselves.