Nourishing Synthetic Biology in the Cradle of Culture
As the first collegiate team in Greece, we've encountered immense difficulties during our project development, as synthetic biology is dramatically underdeveloped in our country on the academic as well as the community level with public perceptions remaining in flux.
For our outreach vision, we’ve zeroed in on two goals:
-spark interdisciplinary student innovation intertwined with ethical debating around the world
-expand public awareness regarding synthetic biology applications on human health, on a global scale by using intuitive learning methods and visual narratology principles
We initiated four parallel campaigns, for the aforementioned goals:
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”Oxynous Theme is an exciting educational initiative for High School students, with the goal to encompass student interests regarding scientific programs not limited to the curriculum. We were excited to be invited by Mr. Dimitris Siapkas, to present our work in a simplistic manner to a inhomogeneous group of students aged 14-18. We informed the students about the field of Synthetic Biology, its potential applications, our own project and the advancement that we already made towards achieving our goals. Through gamified activities, we explained the main sub-projects of the wet and dry lab and showcased quorum sensing using party favor noise makers (inspired by the “Quorum Sensing Activity” of the MIT/HHMI Teachers’ Workshop 2011) and an electrical circuit that simulates our RNAi classifier’s function, by using simple logic gates and LEDs. After the main event, we discussed with the students about our engagement with the project, decision making and problem-handling. The students also provided us with feedback on our presentation and on their understanding of Synthetic Biology, by filling a survey.Everyone was enthusiastic about the experience and we were more than happy to take part in such an event, that introduces the students to a fresh mindset, that of a team-oriented, interdisciplinary approach to hard problems.
