Team:OLS Canmore/Engagement

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COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

This year, our team has worked hard in our efforts to engage the community and educate them about our project, as well as iGEM. Some of our biggest accomplishments regarding engagement are ASTech 2.0, Navig8, Biotreks, classroom presentations and aGEM.

ASTech Accelerate 2.0
Every year, the ASTech foundation awards teams for scientific accomplishment. At the awards ceremony, they hold a showcase for the next generation of innovators. Three members of our team attended the showcase, and set up an interactive booth. We talked to guests all evening about the problem that keratin waste poses, our solution, and iGEM. We had fun pipetting and participating in plating activities, as well as testing the strength of hair to give a sense of the background for our project.

Navig8
As another educational outreach experience, we also dove right into navigating the tough waters of understanding the bigger impact of our project. We attended a water summit hosted by Inside Education, called Navig8, where we learned about water systems, what happens to our water when it leaves the treatment plant, and the potential harm it could have on the environment. This insight was given through a number of presentations, interactive water activities and conversation with experts. There was a lot to take in, and it made us think, water we going to do to keep us safe? From our experience at the summit, we were inspired to create a bioreactor as a containment system for our keratinases.

Biotreks
Our team also partook in Biotreks, an online collaborative student journal. We wrote two papers; a research and perspective paper, for publication.

Our research paper, Expression of Keratinase Genes from the Bacillus Genera in Escherichia coli JM109 and DH5α for use in the Poultry and Wastewater Management Industries, described our project, as well as all of the research we have done and the various assays that we performed. We also outlined our design for implementation and discussed our results. Our perspectives paper entitled Learning to Ker: Safety and Ethics in High School Synthetic Biology, from the play on words, KERatinase and CARE, detailed how we maintain safety and ethical concerns inside of a high school laboratory. Because we have so many students and staff using the space where we work, it is necessary to keep it safe for them, us and our project. We also included some ethical considerations with high school synthetic biology, outlining our Catholic faith and its perspective.

For more information on our Biotreks publications please see the 'Collaborations' page.

Biotreks was a collaborative, peer-reviewed online conference, therefore we got to read many other student papers while commenting and giving feedback. Participating in a peer-reviewed setting was extremely interesting to us because not only could we receive feedback about our own project, but we could also help other teams build on their publications.

Synthetic Biology 15 Course
Last year, we worked with Dr. Magdalena Pop, our mentor, to submit her locally developed Synthetic Biology 15 curriculum to Alberta Education. The curriculum was approved, which means that any student in the province of Alberta can now study Synthetic Biology 15 for high school credit! This year, we are happy to be the first ever cohort in Canada to complete this course, with 11 students earning credits towards graduation through the completion of our iGEM project, and some additional research and study.

One of our culminating tasks was preparing a visual learning tool that can support other high school iGEM students starting out on the steep learning curve when beginning a new iGEM team. For a sample of these learning visuals, please click here. To view and access the Synthetic Biology 15 curriculum and supporting educational resources, please click here. For teachers wishing to learn more about this educational opportunity, Ms. Puurunen would love to discuss this further with you.

TedX Canmore 2016
Mr. Arvisais and Ms. Puurunen were so enthusiastic about the success of the Synthetic Biology 15 course work we completed this year, that they applied, successfully, to delivered a TedX talk in Canmore in January 2016 on the subject. While the students were not directly involved in the production of this Ted Talk, we think the video demonstrates the engagement and learning that took place in our semesters of Synthetic Biology learning! Watch the TedX Talk here.

Classroom Presentations
As a way to inform our school about iGEM, Synthetic Biology and our project, we presented to many of our younger students in an attempt to spark engagement and build our future team.

aGEM
More recently, our team attended aGem, the Alberta iGEM mini jamboree, which was hosted by Mindfuel and took place at the University of Calgary. Here, we presented our project among three high school teams and three collegiate teams. We were awarded with first place in the high school team category and were also given special award for scientific collaboration. We had private team sessions with the judges, where they gave us useful feedback on how to improve our presentation. We also used this opportunity to network with other local iGEM teams.

Contact us at:
https://www.facebook.com/OLeSsence/
@igem_canmore
larvisais@redeemer.ab.ca