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The Terre Haute Children's Museum, founded in 1988, features many exhibits on topics ranging from archaeology to architecture. However, the Rose-Hulman team noticed that there are no exhibits on small-scale biology, specifically synthetic biology. Devon and Kristen then took on the project of creating an exhibit to introduce children to the concepts and methods of synthetic biology. The team felt that one of the best ways to get kids interested in synthetic biology was to show them lab equipment that they could touch and play with. The exhibit also gives kids a chance to explore designing DNA sequences. In this way, they can experience a process that synthetic biologists go through.
The Design Table, pictured below, introduces children to the idea of putting together DNA sequences. The instructions on the table ask them to think of ways they would use synthetic biology if they could make cells "do anything." The team hopes that this will inspire them to use creativity to explore the possibilities of synthetic biology. Colored magnetic shapes are used to represent DNA. Children can select from different colors, each with a different purpose - the four DNA nucleotide bases, A, T, G, and C, as well as Promoters and Terminators - and align them on the board to create their sequence. They also have the option of putting together various sequences found on cards on the table or create the matching sequence to given DNA sequences. This gives more uncertain children the chance to understand the process. Examples of these cards are seen below.
After creating their sequence, the children move on to the Lab Bench, where they explore four different pieces of lab equipment.
The four stations are:
Throughout the summer, Rose-Hulman iGEM has been collaborating with NTNU Trondheim. The teams found each other by luck when a speaker came to Rose-Hulman to meet with students participating in a math REU and talk about network modeling. This speaker was Eivind Almaas, NTNU’s iGEM main advisor. After touching base with our lead advisor, Dr. Anthony, Dr. Almaas provided us with great perspective about being a starting iGEM team because his team was in the same position last year. He suggested that we should video conference in the near future.
On 7/23/2012, the two teams met for the first time via video conferencing to talk about their projects and to offer advice to the other team. In efforts to help each other out, RHIT agreed to help to characterize their lactate promote. In exchange, the NTNU team agreed to help critique our Mathematical Model and produce a stochastic model. We hope that this newly found friendship will continue throughout the years and that we will be lucky enough to meet the whole team in person this November.
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