High School Outreach

To inform high school students about synthetic biology in general and our project in particular we conducted two workshops (on 2013-01-29 and 2013-04-28) in which we invited students to DTU. For the first workshop our guests were the "[http://www.sciencetalenter.dk/da/ Science Talents]", a selected group of 16 talented high schoolers from both Greenland and Denmark. The second workshop was given in front of 20 danish lifescience students and 11 international students from Norway, Hong Kong, China and the Netherlands.

The workshops consisted of three parts: Firstly a theoretical part in which we gave a lecture about the principles of synthetic biology and iGEM. Specifically we introduced the idea of biological parts and how they can be combined to create systems that help solve problems of our time. To illustrate this point we presented two iGEM projects from last year.

A team member explaining the task to the students.

Students assembling parts to create a system.

The lecture was followed by a practical part in which the students formed small groups and did a hands-on exercise. In this exercise we gave them parts and let them build biological systems to solve a problem of their own choice.

Students proudly presenting their work.

The workshops concluded with the student groups explaining their systems to each other in short presentations.

Agenda

10:40 - Welcome and short Introduction.

10:50 - [http://tedxcopenhagen.dk/birger-lindberg-moller-plant-power-ultimate-way-to-go-green/ Video]: Plant power - The ultimate way to go green- Birger Lindberg Møller at TEDxCopenhagen 2012.

11:05 - Presentation by DTU iGEM team: Present iGEM and parts, bring many examples.

11:25 - present some parts and make them try to rebuild previous igem concepts, eg. Imperial College London 2012.

11:35 - Present "Portifolio of problems" so they have something to work towards.

5 min break if needed

11:45 - Workshop: Divide into four random group, each group will get one of the iGEM team members as adviser.

Using presented parts, or coming up with their own ideas for parts, they will "build" something by cut and pasting on a big white piece of paper, which will end up as a poster.

12:15 - Presentation five minutes for each group.

12:35 - written feedback while the iGEM team picks a winner.

12:37 - Presentation of winner, Choko-Prize, small pamphlets with our contact info, iGEM link, link to the video they saw etc.

12:40 - Students leave for lunch.