To educate and excite high school students about synthetic biology we planned a 55 min workshop to take to different schools. As part of this workshop we performed a basic DNA extraction from strawberries to make the class more interactive and engaging to the students. We also gave a short introduction talk to introduce the field of synthetic biology to them and a codon optimization challenge to begin to introduce some challenges faced in the lab. Finally we finished with a group discussion where the students were we asked what they would like to design/ make using synthetic biology and then to consider any ethic or legal issues that might be faced with this. They were also given this time to any questions they might have regarding to anything covered during the class.<br>

On the 6th September a team consisting of Kirsten, Daniel, Rijata and Diana visited Davison High School to present this workshop to the Year 11 Chemistry class. The following week on the 13th September the same team visited Loreto Kirribilli to present to a Year 10 science class. On both these days we also gave each student a short survey both before and after the workshop, the results of which can be seen below. In total these workshops were attended by 44 students. <br>

[graph 1] <br>

Although before the workshop a total of 11 students had heard of synthetic biology before a majority of students had never heard of it or thought it sounded familiar. After the workshop only one student still believed they did not know what synthetic biology was, however this was also followed by a comment saying they did learn more about it then they previously knew.<br>

[graphs 2 and 3] <br>

As would be expected, most students were not sure whether synthetic biology should be regulated or not, as most had not heard of the field. However it was interesting to see that after the workshop at total of 7 students believe there would be no ethical concerns or risks with synthetic biology and 2 students thought it would not need to be regulated.<br>

[graph 4] <br>

Once again, unsurprisingly, a majority of students did not don’t know whether this field would be part of the future as they had not heard of it, however it was nice to see every student did think synthetic would be a part of the future of science. <br>

Further it was interesting to see of the total 44 students in attendance at both workshops 6 students did believe that ordinary tomatoes do not have genes but genetically modified tomatoes do, however the other 38 students did not believe this. Further after by the end of the workshop all 44 students did believe their understanding of synthetic biology had improved.<br>

[Pictures] <br>