Team:Lethbridge/Collaborations

Lethbridge High School

For the 6th consecutive year, we collaborated with the Lethbridge High School iGEM team providing mentorship and assistance with wet lab work, while also working together on the educational aspects of our projects. The high school team worked on creating STEAM (Science Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) related courses for the Alberta curriculum while the collegiate team designed Professional Development day workshops for teachers using our system as a teaching aide. We worked together on developing relevant questions to ask teaching staff during interviews and a member from both teams was present for each interview. Our team also had high school members read over our protocols developed for teachers and students to see if they understood the concepts or had suggestions for improvement. In terms of mentorship, collegiate team member Chris Isaac hosted a coding workshop for the high school team to teach them coding skills and web design, collegiate team member Taylor Sheahan assisted with wet lab work and collegiate team member Sydnee Calhoun acted as an advisor for the high school team.

Validation of BBa_K281401

The goal of the Lethbridge High School team is to create environmentally friendly pigments in E. coli as an alternative to current production methods. Our team tested their melanin construct (BBa_ K281401) to see if it could be produced using the PURExpess system, providing further characterization of their part. Production of melanin in a cell-free system provides a scalable and safe method for large scale pigment production. In theory, our system would be able to produce pigment as well.

Results

Florida State University

For the 6th consecutive year, we collaborated with the Lethbridge High School iGEM team providing mentorship and assistance with wet lab work, while also working together on the educational aspects of our projects. The high school team worked on creating STEAM (Science Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) related courses for the Alberta curriculum while the collegiate team designed Professional Development day workshops for teachers using our system as a teaching aide. We worked together on developing relevant questions to ask teaching staff during interviews and a member from both teams was present for each interview. Our team also had high school members read over our protocols developed for teachers and students to see if they understood the concepts or had suggestions for improvement. In terms of mentorship, collegiate team member Chris Isaac hosted a coding workshop for the high school team to teach them coding skills and web design, collegiate team member Taylor Sheahan assisted with wet lab work and collegiate team member Sydnee Calhoun acted as an advisor for the high school team.

Validation of XX

Results