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Team:UANL Mty-Mexico/syntheticrally
From 2012.igem.org
Synthetic Rally
Como actividad de colaboración con otros equipos iGEM, el equipo iGEMUANL fue invitado por el equipo iGEM CIDEB a llevar a cabo la actividad llamada “Rally Sintético”. Que consistió en difundir la Biología Sintética, demostrar Biología Molecular y mostrar la Ingeniería Genética a los estudiantes de la secundaria del Colegio Americano Anáhuac por medio de actividades recreativas. Primeramente se llevaron exposiciones introductorias y posteriormente se llevó a cabo la actividad de una duración aproximada de 2 horas. Finalmente se realizó una simulación de concurso iGEM donde aplicaron los conocimientos adquiridos para lograr alcanzar el Gran Premio, el Gran BioBrick.
Description
Objectives
- To promote the importance and impact synthetic biology has actually, and inform about the interesting applications through a funny, entertaining, educative and original activity: the “Synthetic rally”. This would help the students learn and enjoy the experience of synthetic biology in a very “silence” way playing thematic games which helped them understand really easy some difficult concepts such as “DNA”, “Plasmids”, “BioBrick”, etc.
- The purpose of the final activity is to simulate an iGEM competition, in which they would apply their knowledge to build an original circuit and win the “Great BioBrick”.
- To generate in 200 junior high students a “good feeling” about synthetic biology. Show them the applications, benefits, risks, and how they could improve the world by modifying something to make a better place, since medicines to advances for protecting the environment.
Activities:
In order to explain completely what iGEM and synthetic biology several activities were done:
- First a small introduction about synthetic biology was given to the students in groups of 2. This was distributed among the students by 2 iGEMers per group. After our iGEM-UANL collaborators gave a brief introduction of what synthetic biology is, some definitions, origins and what does it imply. Then CIDEB iGEMers explained the whole activity and the objective of the activity. This was to create in the students’ mind preparation for what they´d learn.
- Before go out to the rally, for every student to participate and understand the team-collaboration experience, they were arranged in teams of 10 students. They were a total of 200 junior high students. This is an important part of the activity as iGEM is about team work, so they had to be very united and try to understand each other to achieve something, just as iGEM-CIDE, iGEM-UANL and now the rally´s teams.
- The thematic rally was done introducing different concepts and knowledge in every station. This was done in the playground of the school “Colegio Americano Anáhuac”. The participants were junior high students from 7th, 8th and 9th grade. They formed 20 teams of 10 integers each team. For all the teams to experience every stop they followed different roles. For example, in the stop #1 2 teams started, team 1 and team 2. When the time was over they took different paths. Team 1 followed to the right and team 2 followed to the left. This allowed them to go in a circular way until completing every station and against different teams. The logistic was applied to every team in the really.
- This rally was about 10 different stations, each with a different game according to the topic we wanted the students to learn. There were 2 persons in each station, one from iGEM-UANL and one from iGEM-CIDEB. This was the arrangement for a better dynamic explaining the concept of the game and the game itself.
- Once the rally was over, they built a circuit using the BioBricks they won in every station. They had to be very creative in order to apply them to the real life and win the final price.
- This activity concluded with a very little award ceremony where we thanked them for their very big effort, attention and dedication to the activity and gave the “Golden BioBrick” to the winner. We said out loud all the circuits for the whole school to listen the different ideas and applications this may have.
- Finally a second poll was applied to compare it with the first one. This is a very good marker to evaluate our advance in the students´ knowledge and comprehension about synthetic biology.
General Topics of the Rally
Synthetic Rally STOPS
Stop #1: Plasmid Conjugation!
Objective: To understand the plasmid conjugations in some bacteria as a mechanism for the natural DNA transference between the organisms.
Activity: Each team will hold their hands forming a big circle and passing the “plasmid” (a hula hoop) through the complete team circle. The teams will compete with each other; the faster team wins.
Materials: 2 hula-hoops and 1 chronometer.
Stop #2: Building with BioBricks
Objective: For students to understand that most of BioBricks constructions use to increase their difficulty as they increase their size.
Activity: The teams will compete to build the highest inverse tower of cans they can. The highest tower built and during 15 seconds is the winner.
Materials: Approximately 60 cans and 2 chronometers.
Stop #3: Blind Transcription
Objective: Simulate the transcriptions of DNA in order to form messengers RNA as a mechanism in genetic expression.
Activity: A labyrinth was drawn over the floor where certain promoters and transcription terminators. The objective is that one team member with his eyes blindfolded will look cross the labyrinth guided only by the rest of the team members. The path starts with one promoter; the objective is that the participant recollects as much promoters as he can to apply them in the final activity. In the same way, he will find terminators that will define the end of the activity.
Materials: The labyrinth designed on the floor with a rope, BioBrick promoters pieces, BioBrick transcription terminators pieces, and a piece of cloth for blindfolding.
Stop# 4: The Part´s Registry Pool Party
Objectiv: To make students understand that in order to build a circuit they have to verify the Parts Registry; to identify its importance and its function, which is that they can find the BioBrick description to know if they´re compatibles with each other to assemble them for their genetic circuit.
Activity: In a big, sealed, black folded box, simulating the “Parts Registry”, some BioBrick pieces with different compatibility assemble code will be collocated. One team member will build a genetic circuit according to the basic order of the gene structure, aided by the rest of the team.
Materials: Chronometer, BioBrick pieces with different compatibilities, Construction to build, Box for “Pool Party” and a specific space for the construction.
Stop# 5: Non-passing electrophoresis
Objective: To understand that the technique of electrophoresis, where DNA molecules are separated, requires special cares with the voltage and time to be in the perfect state to avoid molecules to spread out of the gel as it is into a magnetic field.
Activity: We´ll collocate a long rope for a few meters, this will have a mark of 50 cm at approximately ¾ from the beginning of the rope. Each team will manage a DNA which will move across the rope (electrophoresis gel), this basing the activity in a balloon together with a straw in order to let the student to get close to his final objective: the “3/4 of the gel”. Each team will try 3 times to get tho most close they can, avoiding crossing the limit..
Materials: 60 Balloons, 60 straws, a rope, ruler.
Stop #6: Third Grade Inverse Osmosis
Objective: Understand the process of osmosis, which is the regulation of nutrients through the plasmidic membrane with specific receptors.
Activity: The teams will arrange in couples and take a towel. Divided by a line drawn with cones, which simulate the membrane, they will pass a water-filled balloon from one side to another, passing it through all the couples. They will have 3 opportunities in 5 minutes for the balloon to explode. The team with 2 points wins.
Materials: Cones, 10 towels, 30 water-filled balloons and chronometer.
Stop #7: “Bacteria Transformation”
Objective: To introduce bacteria transformation as an important part of Synthetic Biology and of biotechnology as a whole.
Activity: Using a pair of oval-shaped containers to simulate the E.coli bacteria, it will be attempted to transform them with the corresponding plasmids represented by rings . The winning team will be the team that can land more rings within the time limit.
Materials: Containers that represent bacteria and rings to represent plasmids.
Stop #8: “Implacable search in the parts registry”
Objective: To introduce bacteria transformation as an important part of Sintetic Biology and of biotechnology as a whole.
Activity: Two members of each team, with their eyes covered, will be in the middle of a “BioBrick database”, represented by a delimited area, which will contain several BioBrick pieces which they have to find with the help of the other members of their teams, who tell them where the pieces are. The winning team will be the team that gets more BioBricks within the time limit.
Materials: Delimited Area, bandages to cover eyes and “BioBricks”
Stop #9: “Proteins Production”
Objective: To understand the messenger RNA translation into ribosome for proteins production and to specify the importance of proteins in the acquisition of certain characteristics to develop a specific function. Specify bacteria transformation as a key process in Synthetic Biology.
Activity: All the integrants of each team will form one row. They hould pass under their legs a watermelon covered by liquid soap without dropping it. The watermelon passing will represent the protein production, and once it falls will be the end of the production. The team with the largest protein will be the winner.
Stop #10: “Extraction and purification of DNA”
Objective: Getting plasmid DNA in synthetic biology is very important because inside the plasmid of the bacteria are inserted the BioBrick. Therefore, so that they be can handled, it is necessary to extract and purify the bacteria that contain them through molecular biology techniques.
Activity: Each team will receive a well-sealed box with several layers of cardboard and tape. The box will represent a bacterium and the different layers of newspaper and tape involving the bacterium will represent the plasma membrane. Inside the box will be another box lined with in the same way containing inside "DNA plasmid molecule" (pipe cleaners). Both teams form a circle and at the center a box will be place. A dice and a pair of mitts oven will be given to them. Each member of the team will be rolling the dice, the one that get an even number, shall be entitled to take the mitts oven and try to grab the box, if he or she gets an odd number, loses the opportunity. The first team in opening the box and get the "plasmid" will win.
Materials: Sealed cardboard boxes and DNA molecules.
