Team:UiOslo Norway/Engagement
Public engagement
We have done a lot to get public attention about iGEM, but also about us and antibiotic resistance. We have used social media, we have a blog, radio, magazines, different newspapers and even published a comic book to hand out. We have also gotten help from the headmaster to write about us in his blog, and we have also made it on different webpages.
Facebook and Instagram
We are very active on social media. On Facebook we have over 560 followers and we are updating with professional articles and other things that are relevant. On Instagram we have about 300 followers. We share fun stuff as well as relevant articles and keeping people updated about our project.
Blog
We also have a blog which we try to update regularly. We share things about our project, but also conferences we've attendend, as well as other fun stuff to keep people interested. Visit our webpage here.
Radio
We have also been on the radio, on Østlandssending on NRK. NRK is Norway's national channel and everyone have free access to listen. You can listen to it here.
Magazines
We have been in the University magazine Apollon. You can read the article here.(It's in Norwegian though).
Newspapers
We have also been visible in different newspapers. Both on the internet and on paper. You can read about us here (Østlandets Arbeiderblad),
here
(Romsdals Budstikke), and
here (Porsgrunn Dagblad). You have to pay a fee to get to read the article.
Comic book
We made our own comic book about syntethic biology! You can see some pictures of it on the right side, or you can visit our stand and get one yourself. We handed the comic book to primary and secondary school pupils, but also students at the University!
Education
Increasing knowledge for primary and secondary school pupils
The 27th and the 28th of September "Ungforsk" was arranged at the University. "Ungforsk" roughly translated means young science and was arranged for the 20th time. Secondary school pupils get to visit the University were they can visit labs and learn more about science. We were so lucky that we got to hold a total of six presentations for those who came to visit. Ragnhild, Paul, Marthe and Torleif held those seminars, and they did a really good job.
Torleif also handed out our comic book to Dokka VGS, the high school in the municipality of Nordre Land. Let's hope they'll get more excited about synthetic biology.
Increasing knowledge for new students at the university
The 30th of August and the 6th of September we held lectures for new biology students at the University. In addition to spreading the word about iGEM, we presented our project and told the new students of the problem of antibiotic resistance. We held three lectures each day and six in total. The students seemed very interested about iGEM, so we hope next years team will have loads of interested students. Marthe, Hans, Paul and Camilla held those lectures.
Roza and Marthe also held a lecture at Sundvolden the 22nd of August.
Increasing knowledge for master students
Ragnhild held a lecture the 16th of August for master students. It was held at Kristine Bonnevies house at the University and there were also pizza afterwards.
Learning material for high school students
The UiOslo team have used the iGEm season to teach synthetic biology to kids and high school students.
Because of this we have generated a 3D file for a bacteria. The idea behind this was to generate a bacteria that could be taken apart
so one could have a look inside the bacteria, of what it contains and how it is build up.
The 3D-model is made in the online 3D-modelling software at https://www.tinkercad.com. The 3D-
model represent a E. coli bacterium and shows its DNA, plasmid, ribosomes, pili and flagellum.
Unfortunately because of time limitations and technical difficulties, the 3D file was not printed.
However the 3D-model is available online, and we have given the file to the “Biologylab” at Department of Biosciences.
Hopefully, they can use another printer and use it for educational purposes. The 3D-model represent
a E. coli bacterium and shows different parts which can be helpful during lectures about e.g. protein
synthesis and gene transfer.
In addition to this, we contributed to generate electron microscopy pictures of our clinical isolates.
These pictures will be used to educate high school students and contribute to increase knowledge
about biology among high school students. The bacteria was fixed and sent down to the electron microscopy department
at UiO. These amazing pictures is made by Antje Hofgaard who works as an senior engineer at the department.
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