At this station, visitors were introduced to two catastrophic situations that they needed to solve using their imaginations: 1) Their friend accidentally fell off of a skyscraper, and 2) Their friend accidentally caused a massive oil spill in the ocean. Solving the first problem was easy; The kids designed a superhero that could shoot webs spiderwebs, fly, and ultimately catch their friend. After solving that problem, solving the second problem proved easy; The kids designed a super bacteria with superpowers such as oil detection, bioemulsification, and oil digestion that could clean the ocean. By the end of this experience, we hoped the kids viewed genetic engineering as a way of creating superheroes that could clean the environment.

Visitors would learn about the concept of BioBricks and versatility of engineering cells to solve global issues. They were wooden model made of poles and color-coded parts that fit on the poles. Each color had a different function like red for production and blue for sensing. A visitor would pick a challenge card with an area of research on it ranging from making synthetic blood to treating malaria. On the back of the card was a description of a solution to the chosen problem using the parts given.

Eat it? Think about it? No way? Visitors were introduced to a variety of engineered foods, both currently available and in development, and asked their opinion on consuming the goods. Items included vanilla flavoring, caffeine, and milk synthesized by yeast, a food pill that provided all daily nutrients, golden rice, and meat created in a lab. Participants were also introduced to different ways we have modified agriculture, such as selective breeding, genetic engineering, and synthetic biology, with common examples.

Visitors would be introduced to a wide range of applications for synthetic biology to start a conversation among the visitors on the level of importance of each application. Each visitor at the table was given a stack of colored coins to represent their opinion. They would place all their coins on the application(s) most important to them and then we would all discuss their choices and reasoning. An additional activity was to give each person at the table a character card with occupations ranging from president of the U.S. to Canadian college student. They would repeat the process of placing coins, but this time in the mindset of the occupation they were given.

This station combines science, art and play to present an analogy for synthetic biology. First, participants used legos to build their own plasmid, mixing and matching different parts. Different legos were used as an analogy for BioBricks, and contained pieces such as promoters and terminators. Visitors were able to pick what physical characteristics they wanted their bacteria to have, such as body color and number of legs, by picking the appropriate lego BioBricks. Then, participants were able to draw the bacteria they just build on our worksheet.

How do scientists feed their bacteria? Visitors learned about LB broth and were able to make their own “imitation LB broth” by mixing lemonade powder and water. To make their mixture, participants weighed out the proper amount of powder using a scale and measured out the correct amount of water using beakers.

Science is an art! Participants were able to try their hand at using pipettes by pipetting food coloring into test tubes with water, and mixing different shades to make their own colorful creations.