Team:Gaston Day School/Outreach

From 2012.igem.org

Gaston Day School hosts an event called the International Festival each year. For our outreach project, we set up a booth at the festival to educate people in how basic genetic engineering works using our iGEM project from last year as an example. The booth also functioned as a minor source of funding for our team.

We had two stations, one which had plasmid models for people to “build” their own BioBricks, and one where participants made a DNA necklace. For the model station, we had rings of brightly colored cardstock to represent reporters, promoters, and backbones. We asked people to come pick one of each part and then cut out and tape the parts together to mirror the process of digestion and ligation that our iGEM team used. The activity helped students understand what genetic engineering is through a simplified model.

For our second booth we asked people to contribute one dollar to create “DNA necklaces” that consisted of isolated DNA from Wheat Germ. Each participant isolated wheat germ DNA for their own necklace. The demonstration allowed others to take part in the process of DNA isolation and also keep their own souvenir. This portion of the booth attracted many of the younger students, generating early interest in DNA and in the things one can do with DNA.