Team:Exeter/Outreach/alevel

We thought it would be really exciting to engage some local students in synthetic biology because it gives them a very real possibility of one of the most diverse options available within the sciences. We thought that we could perhaps even encourage study of the sciences at a higher level because university applications are dropping, particularly amongst women.

Eighty sixth-form students (16 to 18 year olds) from the local Thomas Hardye School came for a one and a half hour session. Alex Baldwin and Alice Bond introduced the topic of Synthetic Biology and explained about iGEM. There was a definite “wow!” when the spider-goat film started to play (taken from BBC's Horizon).

Students were then split up into groups of ten and asked to think about an iGEM project they would like to carry out. The teachers walked around to support, as did the iGEM members. After twenty minutes, one member of each team then went up to the front to present their groups idea or ideas. The students were extremely creative and enthusiastic and some fantastic ideas appeared; including a biological nano-computer, grow- your- own- meat and a blood sugar-level monitoring plaster (similar to an idea being developed by NASA). A few of the students came up with more comic ideas, such as to “make your dog smell like lemons,” which made the whole room roar with laughter!

^ A cheeky presentation of some inventive ideas.

The students were then asked to discuss the ethics associated with their favourite ideas. They were very thoughtful and came up with a range of weighted implications.

The general atmosphere of the session was really positive and the students seemed to have a really fun time. Hopefully they took something from it, even if it was just a few laughs and the definition of synthetic biology and iGEM!

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