Together with the iGEM teams from Bonn, Freiburg, Munich, Marburg and Tübingen, we decided to organize a nation-wide event in order to promote synthetic biology, the iGEM competition and, of course, our individual projects. We picked September 7th for this “SynBio Day”, when every participating team set up a booth in their respective home town. In Bielefeld, we set up a information booth in front of our town hall. There, we put up posters explaining the basics of Synthetic Biology, as well as our microbial fuel cell project. A microscope, connected to a TV, enabled our visitors to examine appearance and movement of different microorganisms. To entertain and educate our young attendants, we also prepared several different experiments. We let them use pipettes to experiment with mixing different kinds of food coloring in well plates. With filter paper, they were able to do simple chromatography experiments with different kinds of felt pens/markers. We guided children through DNA isolation experiments using fruits and simple household materials extraction experiments. The isolated DNA was filled into small reaction tubes and sealed so that the children could take their self-extracted DNA home. All of these experiments were very well received by children and parents.

With the adults we discussed Synthetic Biology and genetic engineering. We explained our projects and informed the public about the iGEM competition. Most people were quite interested and asked lots of questions. We were happy to have high attendance all day long.

Our booth in front of the Bielefeld Town Hall

The chromatography experiment was fun and lots of colorful and diverse works were produced

Inside the tent, our young attendants could do an isolation of fruit DNA

With joy and excitement, the children learned basic laboratory techniques from us. Here, Manuel shows two little twin girls how to use a pipet.