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Overview:
On 2nd & 3rd July, Rob, Elsa, Jess, Lorna and Timmy ran a series of 12 workshops for around 200 11-14 year old schoolchildren as part of the University of Manchester Science Stars day (http://www.ls.manchester.ac.uk/schoolsandcommunity/schoolevents/). This was an activity of two halves. Firstly, Elsa gave a brief and interactive presentation about the structure of DNA, which then lead to our “Sweet DNA” activity (using sweets and cocktail sticks to build a double helix model). Next, Rob gave another brief presentation, this time describing our project and explaining the current ways that it is obtained. This then led nicely on to group discussions (about what they would like synthetic biology to be used for, and any ethical implications these ideas may raise) amongst the children, with the team making their way around the groups for more in-depth discussions.
[link to Prezi here, pdf version as well as ‘portable Prezi’, and maybe some screenshots of the presentation in a nice collagey way, or record a video of the presentation from a computer and upload the video]
Reception:
Both pupils and teachers alike enjoyed the workshop, with many children commenting on how “this [was] better than science class”, “this was the best workshop so far” and that the Sweet DNA helix “was so cool”! Several of the teachers also sincerely thanked us for the workshop, and said that they were going to use the activity again in their classes to teach about DNA. The second half of the sessions was also productive, with pupils eagerly sharing their ideas on what synthetic biology would best be used for. We had some very interesting suggestions come up, including the re-engineering of plants to make them cold-resistant and using the cancer-resistant genes from the naked mole rat to look into cancer prevention.
[insert pictures of some of the better whiteboard shots (2 or 3 should do)]
