Team:UIUC Illinois/outreach

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Outreach

Illinois Synth and the University of Illinois iGEM team have embraced human practices as an opportunity to develop our own sense of ethics and responsibility while promoting general knowledge about synthetic biology.

We have decided to focus our energies on a collaboration to produce informative and thought provoking videos on genetically modified organisms as well as individual presentations on synthetic biology within the Champaign-Urbana community.

Engineering Open House

Our team was proud to present an exhibit at the 92nd annual 2012 Engineering Open House, or EOH. Over two sunny days on March 9 and 10, iGEM presented one of over 230 exhibits as part of one of the country’s largest science fairs.

Our exhibit on synthetic biology and the manipulation of DNA fit perfectly with the event’s theme, “Dream, Design, Discover.” At our booth we explained what DNA was to school children and allowed them to extract their own DNA via salt water and rubbing alcohol.

We explained the amazing uses of biobricks by displaying plates with drawings colored by E. Coli transformed with YFP, GFP, and mCherry.

We also discussed the safety and ethics of such genetic manipulations with parents and professors who stopped by our station.

Lincoln’s Challenge Academy

In accordance to our "hands on" approach in getting directly involved with our community and involving the philosophies of science with local educational facilities, we visited and presented at the Lincoln's Challenge Academy in Rantoul, Illinois.

As a part of the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program, the students were of a high school age demographic. However, the demographic and educational backgrounds has its differences from the standard educational system. Members of our team who had participated in educational scientific demonstrations had never been exposed to environment of a military academy. The scientific demonstrations involved:

• Fluorescent hand lotion to demonstrate the spread of pathogens through common contact with objects and people
• Colouring silly putty and exploring the physical properties of the putty we made
• Demonstrating and explaining what happens when dry ice interacts with soap, how temperature affects physical properites of substances
• Flash freezing everyday items like candy bars and even the silly putty to show how heat energy is transferred

"The faces seemed familiar, but the atmosphere felt so foreign. It was eye opening to say the least; I feel like the schools most of us on the iGEM team went to pampered us with scientific education focuses. I'm glad we were able to open some eyes too, especially with the demonstrations we did with the liquid nitrogen and dry ice."

- Bob Chen

GMO Collaboration

The overriding purpose of human practices is to educate the public about what synthetic biology is, what it’s applications are, and the safety of future developments in the field. To this end we are proud to collaborate with fellow iGEMmers from Cornell and the University of Southern Denmark to produce a video series on GMOs, or Genetically Modified Organisms.

We hope to engage the general public in a thoughtful conversation on this hot topic by discussing the history, ethics, and future of several GMO areas, all of which have been effected by the innovations of synthetic biology. Please check out the videos at our youtube channel. In particular, we have created 2 videos – one on transgenic corn and another on gene therapy.

Special thanks to the following faculty for their time and participation in our videos.

• Dr. Fred Below, Professor of Crop Physiology
• Dr. Rita Mumm, Director of Illinois Plant Breeding Center
• Dr. Stephen Moose, Professor of Plant Genomics
• Dr. Huimin Zhao, Centennial Endowed Chair Professor