Team:Dalhousie Halifax NS/Human Practices

Human Practices

Public Outreach

The purpose of our Human Practices this year was as follows:

  • Educate the younger generation about the importance and usage of synthetic biology
  • Allow them to draw the cross discipline connection (link engineering/computer science with biology)
  • Develop career interest in the younger students
  • Reach out and attempt to make iGEM a more sustainable effort at Dal and in Atlantic Canada
  • Work with the Community and Government to make connections for iGEM teams in the future

We attempted to achieve each of these purposes through a few different approaches we undertook this summer. One of the major parts of our iGEM project was community involvement. For this section we decided to present to young SuperNOVA summer campers at Dalhousie University. Our objective was to educate the next generation about the importance and application of synthetic biology. This would in turn allow the future scientists to draw connections across disciplines and help them develop an interest in this field. We also reached out to the Advanced Education Minister with the Nova Scotia Provincial Government to find new way to make iGEM a sustainable initiative. We worked with Shubenacadie Wildlife Park, which is run by Nova Scotia's Department of Natural Resources, in order to complete our project and make connections for future iGEM initiatives.

Initially we presented to SuperNOVA camps to spread the word about iGEM and synthetic biology. For the actual presentations we split into two groups of four, and we visited an elementary engineering camp and a junior high computer science program. The presentation was outlined as follow:

  1. An introduction to the human microbiome.
  2. A brief exploration of the technologies used in synthetic biology (ie. Mass spectrometer).
  3. A summarized speech of this year’s iGEM project – investigating the mechanisms to produce biofuels from porcupine wastes.
  4. Interactive activities and games that allowed campers to learn actively. This was done through modelling the microbiome by using analogies incorporated in the activities to encourage participation.

The different parts of the presentation all contributed to the common themes - encouraging young students to pursue a career in synthetic biology and providing them the information leading to healthy lifestyle choices.

Generally, the presentations were well received. It evoked interests among young individuals as displayed through their enthusiasm. However, there were concerns about delivering presentations of the right difficulty level. One group found the information oversimplified; while the other group were not responding actively to the interactive questions. Consequently, the feedback and responses we observed during the sessions would allow us to make amendments for future events.

It was apparent that we reached the goal of developing an interest of synthetic biology among the younger generation. Evaluating from this perspective, this event was deemed successful and we had fun doing it!