SCIENCE COMMUNICATION

OVERVIEW

Lambert iGEM focused science communication and educational outreach towards the promotion of synthetic biology education in our local community and on an international scale.

We wrote and illustrated a children’s storybook, Grow and Glow, targeted towards elementary schoolers to introduce them to the fundamental concepts of synthetic biology. We partnered with our local library and elementary school, Sharon Forks Public Library and Sharon Elementary School respectively, to host storybook readings and hands-on activities. We referred to the Georgia Standards of Excellence for third, fourth, and fifth grade to ensure appropriate lexile and content in the storybook and aligned the storybook to the Georgia Standards of Excellence for 5th grade to ease teacher implementation in a classroom setting.

We also developed synthetic biology workshops for students and teachers in Cameroon using pre-recorded video lessons and hands-on lab activities. We referred to the Cameroon national high school curriculum and Georgia Standards of Excellence for the Biotechnology pathway to develop this workshop series.

STORYBOOK

In order to introduce synthetic biology to the next generation of scientists, our team wrote and illustrated a storybook targeted towards elementary school students. Our goal was to produce an engaging story aligned with the Georgia Department of Education Standards of Excellence for 3rd through 5th grade to give students early exposure to the fundamentals of biotechnology and encourage academic interest [1]. We consulted with Dr. Brittney Cantrell, the Science Specialist for grades 6-12 in Forsyth County Schools, and she offered insight regarding which educational standards to refer to and how to tie in elements of synthetic biology into the existing curriculum.

Our storybook, Grow and Glow (see Fig. 1), was inspired by an article published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that described how researchers plan to engineer bioluminescent trees [2]. Grow and Glow introduces Enrique, a student on a field trip, to Dr. Rosalind, a synthetic biologist who engineers bioluminescent trees. She invites Enrique into her lab and describes the process of bacterial cloning using explanatory graphics and analogies. Enrique learns about the potential of bioluminescent trees to encourage sustainability by saving electricity [3].

Figure 1. Grow and Glow, a storybook written and illustrated by Lambert iGEM.

To distribute Grow and Glow into our local community, we explored two main avenues: partnering with our local public library and collaborating with Forsyth County elementary school teachers.

We hosted a science workshop, Science and You, at Sharon Forks Public Library to read our storybook and conduct hands-on experiments. Students learned how to extract DNA from strawberries and observe prepared slides through a microscope (see Fig. 2). After this workshop, our team was invited to present our book at 4-H, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of youth development in science and agriculture.

Figure 2. The table at the front of the library meeting room with supplies for the program.

Additionally, we volunteered to read our book at our neighboring elementary school, Sharon Elementary School (see Fig. 3). After receiving feedback from the first few classroom readings in September, we adapted our presentation method and added questions to our pre- and post-surveys and gave students the opportunity to engage in our Q&A sessions. Participants in surveys provided consent for the release of their responses from a legal guardian. We also took advantage of this time to discuss safety measures and protocols that should be implemented, such as ethical peer review, when working with synthetic biology.

Sample Frequently Asked Questions and corresponding responses:

Q: How hard is it to use synthetic biology to change different organisms?
A: The process is a little bit complicated because we’re building new DNA out of DNA that is already existing, which is hard because most of the time we’ll test the engineered DNA we want to have and find out we failed to create it. It’s not easy getting the organisms we want because we’re trying to make them do things that are unnatural to them.

Q: Can synthetic biology be used for other purposes? On other Organisms?
A: Yes it has many purposes! For example, our team is creating a biosensor using E.coli which are “bad” bacteria to tell us when the plants get sick. Another example is using synthetic to build organisms to eat toxic chemicals in water or soil that would not otherwise decompose.

Q: Can you use DNA from a living organism to engineer another organism?
A: Genes can be taken from DNA and engineered into a separate organism’s DNA to make unique traits natural in an organism.

Q: Can you engineer abiotic matters such as water using synthetic biology?
A: As abiotic factors do not contain DNA, we cannot genetically engineer them.

Figure 3. Team members (from left to right) Jenny, Hannah, and Regina doing a virtual reading with students from a local elementary school

Post survey data from teachers revealed that our storybook made synthetic biology “very approachable” and that students were “engaged and enjoyed reading about the topic.” After our Q&A session, over 88% of students understood the fundamentals of synthetic biology as compared to the initial 30% (see Fig 4).

Figure 4. Students were significantly more knowledgeable about and engaged with synthetic biology after reading the storybook.

CAMEROON

In the 2020 season, Lambert iGEM collaborated with the All Sciences Olympiad Foundation in Accra, Ghana and conducted four workshops that provided virtual lab opportunities for high school students in Ghana. While discussing this work with Caroline Matarrese, a STEM teacher in Forsyth County and former Peace Corps volunteer, she stressed the STEM needs of a school she worked in during her Peace Corps service, ONASI Bilingual College (ONASI) in Ebolowa, Cameroon, and their enthusiasm for biotechnology. With her help, we contacted her former principal, Mr. Onana Messi.

The aim of this partnership was to provide biotechnology lessons and hands-on lab activities for their high school students. Mr. Onana informed us that students often avoid the science pathway at their school due to limited lab opportunities and resources. ONASI’s science department plans to kick-start their school year with our workshop series to promote hands-on science education and increase enrollment in science courses. In the early development phase, we noticed biotechnology was not heavily emphasized, even though their curriculum covered the basics of DNA and gene transfer. Mr. Onana expressed that his students were passionate about synthetic biology, prompting us to develop a standards-based supplementary synthetic biology series that expanded off their curriculum. Mr. Onana included Carlos Tabe, a chemistry teacher from ONASI, on our collaboration team to ensure the lessons were appropriately standards-aligned and called for materials that would be easily accessible for local teachers. Additionally, we referred to the Biotechnology pathway curriculum provided by the Georgia Department of Education from the Georgia Standards of Excellence as a basis for our lessons. Once we had a clear understanding of the curriculum, we arranged to develop a series of virtual workshops and send materials for a teacher training that would take place in early September. In the future, we anticipate Mr. Onana will be able to share the training framework with the ministry of education in Ebolowa and promote the use of a community lab kit that would provide materials to expand this opportunity to other schools in the Mvila school district.

Development of Teacher Training Materials

We developed a workshop for teachers that provides standardized lessons and interactive labs surrounding various topics on biology and biotechnology, aligned to Cameroon’s national high school biology curriculum and Georgia’s biotechnology pathway curriculum as outlined in the Georgia Standards of Excellence.

Earlier this summer, we provided a lab kit to accompany the virtual teacher training materials that contained the following supplies. (see Fig. 1): :

4 boxes of Foldscopes (paper microscopes) (80 Foldscopes in total)

4 boxes of premade microscope slides (100 premade slides in total)

1 pack of glass microscope slides (72 slides in total)

1 pack of plastic microscope cover slips (100 coverslips in total)

1 bottle of iodine stain

1 daytime projector

Figure 1: Lab materials sent to ONASI Bilingual College.

This workshop series contains 12 lessons and includes activities for teachers to use in their own classrooms. These lessons are as follows:

Overview

Prelab

Introduction to DNA + Central Dogma

Introduction to DNA + Central Dogma: Check-for-Understanding

Introduction to Synthetic Biology

Introduction to Synthetic Biology: Check-for-Understanding

Lab Safety

Building a Foldscope

Using a Foldscope

Preparing a Slide

Postlab

Recap

All of the lessons, excluding Prelab and Postlab , are presented as pre-recorded videos. Overview introduces students to their instructors, discusses the topics they will learn during this series, and emphasizes the importance of science in the real world. Prelab gives students the opportunity to set up their lab notebooks to prepare for the upcoming lessons and labs. Introduction to DNA addresses the fundamentals of DNA and central dogma, reviewing topics such as DNA structure, DNA replication, RNA, transcription, translation, and proteins. This lesson requires a check for understanding to ensure that students are grasping the information. Introduction to Synthetic Biology provides a general overview of synthetic biology and its real world applications, specifically discussing its utilization in space, medicine, and the environment. This lesson also requires a check for understanding. Lab Safety introduces students to general lab safety practices, such as hand washing techniques and proper laboratory attire, and emphasizes necessary practices for upcoming labs. Each lesson includes a formative assessment to evaluate student comprehension.

For the lab portion of this series, we emphasized the importance of frugal science. Dr. Saad Bhamla from the Georgia Institute of Technology was one of the leading scientists in the development of the Foldscope, a $1 paper microscope that brings impactful science to underfunded areas. Unlike many microscopes used in modern labs, the Foldscope does not require electricity or other external resources, allowing utilization of such microscopes in rural or isolated areas. Previously, Dr. Bhamla participated in our Foldscope workshop at Lambert High School, teaching biotechnology students how to use the frugal microscope. Incorporating these instructions into our own lessons, Building a Foldscope teaches students how to assemble their Foldscope for future use. Using a Foldscope teaches students how to view cells under the Foldscope using the box of premade microscope slides. Preparing a Slide teaches students how to create their own microscope slide using onion skin.

The final lessons serve as a conclusion to the workshop. Postlab gives students the opportunity to provide feedback on this workshop session. Recap thanks all of the students and facilitators for taking the time to watch and review all of our videos and lessons, and allows facilitators to provide feedback on this workshop session. To accomodate for the English-French language barrier, we also added English subtitles to all of our videos.

Implementation

In early July, we arranged to send necessary materials to ONASI for the teacher training which would take place on Monday, September 6th. Unfortunately, Mr. Onana’s original timeline needed to be modified to accommodate teachers, so the training had been rescheduled to take place later in the semester.

We plan to evaluate student learning by asking comprehension questions throughout the videos for students to answer in their lab notebooks. The accuracy of the responses will indicate the effectiveness of the workshops, and the students’ ability to recall information from the videos will indicate their retention. To collect the data, we will ask the facilitators in Cameroon to upload pictures of student responses to a shared google drive. We will also ask them to exclude student names from the pictures in order to anonymize the responses.

Our workshops aim to address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, Quality Education, so that students can understand the impact synthetic biology has in our future. We hope this workshop will allow the spread of synthetic biology and general biology education to expand past ONASI to various schools and larger audiences. By educating the students of today, we hope to make way for new innovations and solutions to arise in the future generations.

RESTRICTION CLONING WEBINAR

Lambert iGEM hosted a collaboration to teach newly developed iGEM teams about the restriction enzyme cloning workflow. We had the opportunity to meet with 7 teams: RUM-UPRM, IISER Tirupati, IISER Berhampur, Istanbul_Tech, UESTC-China, and two unconstructed teams (see fig. 1). This webinar introduced each step of the workflow and briefed participants on how to build an effective plasmid and insert (see fig. 2). Due to the complexity of bacterial cloning, Lambert iGEM believed it would be beneficial for newer iGEM teams to grasp a theoretical understanding of the workflow before beginning their project.

Figure 3. A screenshot from our Restriction Enzyme Cloning Webinar.

After participants signed a waiver allowing use of data collection we held poll questions throughout the webinar and conducted a post-survey after the workshop. Using our poll questions asked every few minutes to identify if we needed to supplement our explanations. The post-survey at the end contained a series of comprehension questions regarding the overall workflow. With majority of the participants answering all of the questions correctly, indicating that they were comprehending and grasping the concepts taught (see fig. 3).

Figure 4. Graphical representation of the answer choices from the poll questions

The post-survey results also revealed that most participants benefited from attending our workshop and all participants would recommend this webinar to new iGEM teams (see Fig. 4).

Figure 5. Graphical representation of the answer choices from the post-survey.

Here are comments from our participants:

The presentation was outstanding! Good job.
The presentation was great.
It was excellent overall, easy to follow and understand. Thank you for your effort!
Really great and informative session thank you for hosting.
Thank you for this webinar, it is very useful for me and my team :)
Overall, it was good, some more information could have been included.
Great webinar, though most things were known theoretically, I learned some details in the process.
Informative and direct to the point.

Overall, the success of the webinar can be seen in the data provided. We were able to successfully introduce knowledge about the cloning workflow, which is essential for many iGEM projects.

REFERENCES

[1] Georgia Department of Education. (2017). Science-grade-5 Georgia Standards of Excellence. Internal Support. Retrieved from https://www.georgiastandards.org/Georgia-Standards/Pages/Science-Grade-5.aspx

[2] Trafton, A. (2017). Engineers create plants that glow. Retrieved from https://news.mit.edu/2017/engineers-create-nanobionic-plants-that-glow-1213

[3] Bandoim, L. (2018). Glow-in-the-dark trees could someday replace city street lights. Retrieved from https://theweek.com/articles/763908/
glowinthedark-trees-could-someday-replace-city-street-lights