Communications:
In the Northern BC iGEM team, we worked extensively on developing and distributing educational materials to children and to our general community. As part of the Human Practices team, we designed a Synthetic Biology coloring book and an at-home science experiment book, and we distributed them to over 50 schools across Northern British Columbia (Canada) to make our education materials more accessible. We also presented in Secondary School biology and science classes about what iGEM and synthetic biology are, and what we do as a part of iGEM. As we believe in fostering interest for future scientists to create impactful change in the world of science and biology, we focused most of our outreach and communication efforts on younger audiences.
We also worked with the University of Northern British Columbia’s Active Minds program, which is designed to teach young children more about science. In this program, we presented at the Ask a Prof event and answered children’s questions about vitamin D and health.
Within our university, we also held many open house awareness events to openly communicate with other students as well as the public. From these events, we promoted iGEM and synthetic biology, and gathered community feedback on prospective project ideas.
