Science Picnic!

This year our IGEM team Warsaw took part in - [http://www.pikniknaukowy.pl/AboutPicnic Piknik naukowy] (The Science Fair). This event takes place every year and its aim is to invite various students, researchers, and teachers to present the topics they are passionate about. It is an amazing opportunity for everyone to come and listen to talks, see experiments, watch educational movies and learn something new. More importantly, this event is free for everyone!

That is why we participated in [http://www.pikniknaukowy.pl/AboutPicnic Piknik naukowy] - it is a great occasion for us as students interested in synthetic biology to present the topic we are passionate about. We also got the chance to observe the reactions of different persons we encountered. Not only small children aged from 5 to 12 were present but also elder children, as well as parents that were very interested in our display (sometimes even more than their children).

This year the fair main subject was life itself. That is why we decided to present the basic compounds of bacteria (Escherichia coli) through a puzzle that we made to illustrate how this small organism can live and why it is so important for us - human beings.

We decided to show that bacteria, not only are occurring naturally in our surroundings but that they can also be modified using molecular biology techniques to acquire different functions that are needed (like producing insulin). For example, we show our wide audience E. coli expressing green fluorescent protein in order explain how genetically modified bacteria help our everyday life and why these organisms are so important. Finally, to illustrate to our youngest audience the need for model organisms in our laboratories we also presented modified Danio rerio explaining the meaning of those animals to us.

We were surprised by the vast range of opinions evoked by our presentation. It was very interesting for us to listen to people feedback, including some fears concerning GMO. This was especially important for us since we were about to shoot a small “documentary” for this year’s Human Practice as it gave us an outlook of questions that we might ask to random people on the street. It also showed to us that we (as people that are somehow involved in science) do not communicate enough with the audience. During this event we understood that we very often use a language that is too complicated for common people to understand what we want to explain... This kind of situations often lead to misunderstanding of some scientific facts that are obvious for the people that are working in laboratories. This is why we want especially to communicate with different people about Synthetic Biology, Genetically Modified Organisms as well as genetic engineering itself. This issue was also observed by other students from our [http://www.uw.edu.pl/en/ university] that is one of the reasons that one of our team member is preparing a conference about GMO’s with the [http://epigen.arabidopsis.pl/ Student Genetics and Epigenetics Society].

But now let’s talk about numbers!!!

• People that were present during the picnic day: 140 000

• People that visited our area:4000

• Students referring: 6

• Amount of hours that each of us stayed at our display referring:

-8h (talking)

-(12 h counting the preparations the exact same day!)

• Percentage of happy people referring: 100%!

This was a very rewarding experience for us all! If You come by Warsaw at the right time come have a look at this Picnic because it is a fantastic experience and an opportunity to learn something new!!!

More pictures can be found on our facebook page!