Collaboration

High School Outreach

Our iGEM team had the amazing opportunity to reach out to high school students through a program at Utah State University called Engineering State. This event allowed us to positively impact high school students from 43 different school districts in which 4 charter schools were represented.

We had four teaching sessions with an average of 23 high school students per session. Our team focused specifically in the area of synthetic biology and biotechnology, teaching them current research being done in this area as well as techniques used. The topics included bacterial transformation, fluorescent proteins, fluorescence microscopy and the iGEM competition. They showed particular interest in the projects held by our Utah State iGEM team and were informed that they could join as high school students if they wished to participate. We also offered the students a hands on experience to give them an in-depth view of the strategies that we use in our own lab.

The exercise consisted in transforming green fluorescent protein (GFP) into competent E. coli cells. The students added GFP DNA cells to the competent cells and allowed them to incubate for a few minutes. The mixture of cells were then placed in a 42 degree Celsius water bath to “heat shock” the cells, allowing DNA to enter the E. coli cells. Then LB growth medium was added and the cells were incubated for some time to be then transferred to Ampicillin-containing agar plates. The students had fun by “drawing” with the solution on the agar plates while they learned the process behind it. These plates were incubated overnight and pictures of their plates under UV light were emailed to these students.

Members of the 2012 iGEM also team presented to high school students visiting Utah State University for the department's Discover Biological Engineering program. The presentation included what synthetic biology is, what the iGEM competition is, how Utah State has participated in the past, and explained this year’s project. Interactions included answering questions and helping high school students learn how to get involved in iGEM.

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