Team:Rochester/Communication
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NOTE FOR JUDGES: This page is the same as our page for the education prize, which can be found here. This page is intended to satisfy the gold medal requirement, while the other page is for the education prize. Both pages have the same content.
We made an effort to reach as many diverse communities as possible to present various topics in synthetic biology at an accessible level. We worked with children at various camps throughout the summer, like those at the Nazareth College Science Camp, which had a proportion of students on the autism spectrum. This provided us with an opportunity to empower children that might not have been able to be as involved in biology as others. We also participated in a summer program called Upward Bound, which allowed us to give high school students a taste of college biology and challenge them with a worksheet that went with each experiment. This encouraged them to think outside of the box and experience questions similar to those asked in peer-led, college-level workshops and recitations. Additionally, we wanted to educate the older generation, because they are often forgotten and for them, even one hour of learning something new and exciting can significantly impact their mood and help them enjoy their lives. Overall, we were able to reach 380+ students through teaching over 20 lessons.
Our activities were designed to last approximately 45 minutes and involved teaching a short lesson that explained the topic and relevant concepts, giving the students hands-on experience with the topic, tying the activity to synthetic biology, and receiving feedback from participants. We created a series of different synthetic biology activities, including pH, Genetic Murder Mystery, Microfluidics, Design-a-Plasmid, and DNA extraction.
Through these fun activities, we were able to engage with various age groups and levels of experience, and create an environment where everyone learned something new and connected it to synthetic biology. When creating the lessons, we adjusted the lesson plans and learning objectives to match the specific age group. Additionally, we received feedback from participants each time we taught our activities and incorporated that feedback back into our lessons so that they would be improved for the next age group that participated in that activity. We really enjoyed being able to share and educate about synthetic biology with these students and inspire them to learn more about science and how it can be used to change the world. Take a look at our finalized learning objectives table and lesson plans below to see what we hoped students would learn!
Ages 6-8
- Name various household objects that are acidic or basic.
- Make predictions about what the different solutions are.
- Match color of litmus paper to corresponding pH.
- Be able to recall if the solutions were acidic or basic.
Ages 9-13
- Name various household objects that are acidic or basic.
- Make hypotheses about what the different solutions are and what their pH's will be.
- Match color of litmus paper to corresponding pH.
- Determine if the solution is acidic or basic based on its pH.
Ages 14-18
- Give examples of acids and bases.
- Make hypotheses about what the different solutions are and what their pH's will be.
- Match color of litmus paper to corresponding pH.
- Determine if the solution is acidic or basic based on its pH.
- Understand and explain how the amount of protons in solution affects pH.
Ages 18+
- Give examples of acids and bases.
- Make hypotheses about what the different solutions are and what their pH's will be.
- Match color of litmus paper to corresponding pH.
- Determine if the solution is acidic or basic based on its pH.
- Understand and explain how the amount of protons in solution affects pH.
Ages 6-8
- Be able to recall what dominant and recessive means.
- Be able to do Punnett squares for one gene with two alleles.
- Be able to list possible phenotypes based on genotype.
Ages 9-13
- Understand what dominant, recessive and co-dominant means.
- Apply those concepts to blood-type inheritance.
- Understand the difference between phenotype and genotype.
- Understand what heterozygous/homozygous mean.
Ages 14-18
- Understand why some alleles are dominant over others at the molecular level.
- Give examples of co-dominance.
- Understand the difference between phenotype and genotype.
- Be able to do Punnett squares for two genes, each with two alleles.
- Briefly explain the central dogma.
Ages 18+
- Understand why some alleles are dominant over others at the molecular level.
- Give examples of co-dominance.
- Understand the difference between phenotype and genotype.
- Be able to do Punnett squares for two genes, each with two alleles.
- Briefly explain the central dogma.
Ages 6-8
- Make observations about water on the plastic and on paper.
- Recall that microfluidic devices are tiny and transport water.
- Be able to create a shrinky dink.
Ages 9-13
- Make observations about water on the plastic and on paper.
- Explain that microfluidic devices are small and help to transport liquids.
- Be able to create a shrinky dink.
- Recall what the science stencil they used is/means/does.
Ages 14-18
- Make observations about water on the plastic and on paper.
- Explain that microfluidic devices are small and help to transport liquids.
- Be able to create a shrinky dink.
- Recall what the science stencil they used is/means/does.
- Give examples of microfluidic devices in the real world and their applications.
Ages 18+
- Make observations about water on the plastic and on paper.
- Explain that microfluidic devices are small and help to transport liquids.
- Be able to create a shrinky dink.
- Recall what the science stencil they used is/means/does.
- Give examples of microfluidic devices in the real world and their applications.
- Propose new uses.
Ages 14-18
- Be able to explain what a plasmid is.
- Recall the parts of a plasmid.
- Give some examples of how they are used in synthetic biology.
Ages 18+
- Be able to explain what a plasmid is.
- Explain the roles of the most important parts of a plasmid.
- Give and understand examples of how they are used in synthetic biology.
- Propose new uses.
Ages 6-8
- Be able to explain that DNA has the information to “make you you”.
- Be able to perform the experiment.
- Recognize the strawberry DNA (with assistance).
Ages 9-13
- Be able to explain that each cell has DNA in it.
- Recognize that DNA contains hereditary information.
- Be able to perform the experiment.
- Recognize what the strawberry DNA looks like and make observations.
Ages 14-18
- Be able to explain the components of DNA (including complementary base-pairing) as well as its location within cells.
- Recognize that DNA contains hereditary information.
- Be able to perform the experiment.
- RMake observations about the DNA.
Ages 18+
- Be able to explain the components of DNA (including complementary base-pairing) as well as its location within cells.
- To able to recall the different bonds that make up DNA.
- Recognize that DNA contains hereditary information.
- Be able to perform the experiment.
- Make observations about the DNA.
Activity Development
Since we were reaching a diverse group of ages and experience levels, we decided that we would create a set of five activities, and alter them to fit a variety of age groups. As students, we have found that our own learning of science is largely cumulative. So, we wanted to structure the activities in such a way that they would both pull from students’ existing knowledge of a topic, but also grow and deepen their knowledge and understanding.
Since we were maintaining the same activities but adapting them to different age groups, it was important for us to understand the differences in learning and knowledge for each age group we were working with. We also wanted to make sure that our activities were inclusive and could be adapted to fit different students’ learning needs.
In order to best prepare our education material for our students, we consulted with various professionals to better understand how to design our lesson plans such that they would be age-appropriate, engaging, and be able to be done in both synchronous and asynchronous manners.
Once we had an idea of the activities we wanted to do but before we started to design our lesson plans, we set up a meeting with Dr. Nicholas Hammond. Dr. Hammond is the assistant director of the workshop program at the University of Rochester’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL). He helped us determine how we would be most likely to succeed in student participation, learning, feedback, and how to determine if new knowledge was obtained. Additionally, since we were teaching a wide range of age groups in a variety of formats, he aided us in how to effectively develop synchronous and asynchronous content.
In terms of student participation, Dr. Hammond, as well as our advisor, Dr. Anne S. Meyer, both gave us advice on the importance of active learning in our activities. Their advice was to ask students relatively easy, yet engaging questions that related to our lessons, so we built those into our lesson plans. This helped to engage our students before we started the activity so that they would be actively thinking and ready to process new information once we started the activity. We also made sure we included large and small group questions we would ask so that students were more likely to feel comfortable participating.
To assess learning, we asked verbal questions at the end of each lesson, again in both large and small groups, to see if students had retained the new concepts that were taught. We also had older students reflect on what they had learned during the lesson and we collected that in our written feedback forms.
Additionally, when it came to designing our lessons, Dr. Hammond encouraged us to use backward design. This meant we clearly defined what our learning objectives were before we created the lesson plan. This made sure that our lessons were tied to the learning objectives, and that the objectives were concise and attainable throughout the lesson. He encouraged us to start with the highest level of science education we would be working with, and then simplify our learning objectives as the level of science education decreased. This helped us maintain consistency within the experiments.
Rochester Bio-Spire team members meet with Dr. Nicholas Hammond from CETL.
Top row (left to right): Dr. Nicholas Hammond and Rochester Bio-Spire team member Maria Schapfel.
Middle row (left to right): Rochester Bio-Spire team members Anca Frasineau and Nikol Pritsky.
Bottom row: Rochester Bio-Spire team member Amanda Adams.
We also reached out to the Center for Disability and Education at the Warner School of Education at the University of Rochester. We wanted to make sure that our activities were accessible to students with different abilities and learning styles, as 1 in 5 students think and learn differently.1 Having our activities accessible to as many students as possible was especially important to us since we did not know anything about our students’ learning styles and needs before working with them. They recommended that we look into Universal Design for Learning (UDL). This method allows for the greatest range of students to access and engage in learning. It works by creating clear goals for learning, but flexible options as to how the students will go about achieving the goals. Having clear goals but flexible options helps to reduce the possible barriers in the learning environment. UDL has three main principles: engagement, representation, and action and expression.2 These principles are based on how different types of learners learn best.
Engagement focuses on the fact that learners differ markedly in the ways in which they can be engaged or motivated to learn.3 Based on this, when the students worked in groups, we made sure each group was a cooperative learning group, where each member was assigned different roles, such as a timekeeper, reader, notetaker, etc. Additionally, at the beginning of each activity, we set clear goals for the students.
Representation focuses on the fact that students perceive and comprehend information that is presented to them in different ways.4 To apply this principle, we used both digital slide shows and paper when we could. We also gave both verbal and written instructions of the activity and explanations of concepts to the students, and had the support of visual aids. Additionally, we spent time going over the needed vocabulary, used metaphors to explain newer concepts, and solidified the students’ previous knowledge about a concept by asking them what they already knew and clearing up any misconceptions before building onto it. Finally, the students were able to work in a hands-on manner to learn and explore more about the topic.
Action and expression focuses on the fact that learners differ in the ways that they can navigate a learning environment and express what they know.5 To make sure the students gained and were able to communicate their newfound knowledge, we asked questions both verbally in large and small group settings, as well as had paper forms for the students to write about what they learned, as well as if they wished something had been presented differently.
When designing our lessons, we utilized a UDL lesson planning guide to help us make sure that we were incorporating these three main principles into our lesson plans so that as many students as possible would positively benefit and learn from our activities.6
Additionally, we wanted to consistently obtain feedback from students and use that to improve and better optimize our activities. We developed feedback forms for 6-8, 9-13, and 14+ age groups, as well as forms specifically for the instructors or counselors that were with us when we taught the activities. To ensure we received feedback, we set aside 5-7 minutes at the end of every lesson for the students and instructors/counselors to fill out the forms. We also gave the option for the students to give us verbal feedback. Later on that day, we would then read through the feedback and make notes of changes we could incorporate into the activities the next time we taught them.
The feedback forms were kept broad and not factivity specific, allowing them to be easily implemented at the end of each activity. We included questions that asked what the students’ most/least favorite parts of the activity were, what they already knew about, what they wished they learned more about, what something new that they learned was, how much they enjoyed the activity, etc. With increasing age groups, we increased the length of the form and the amount of thought and writing required to answer the questions. The feedback forms for each age group can be found above with the lesson plans.
We used the feedback we received from the students to get a better understanding of academically what the students already knew, what we should keep in the lessons, what we should change, and what we should spend more time on. We found out that these feedback forms were most helpful in improving the lesson and age group that they were filled out for, however, there were some more global ideas, such as incorporating more visuals, were incorporated into a variety of different age groups. More information about how we used feedback follows in the next section.
We wanted to consistently obtain feedback from the students every time we taught an activity so that we could improve and better optimize the activity for the next group of students that we taught.
Feedback and Implementation
After each lesson, we obtained feedback from the students, their counselors, and observations from our own team. We would then compile and go through the feedback and figure out what changes we would like to make to our activities. We then edited our activities in accordance with the feedback before we taught the lesson again.
In the initial weeks, with students ages 6-11, we introduced our pH and microfluidics activities.
We found that students were generally intrigued by the color change of the indicator paper and were quite excited to guess the pH of the solutions that they were familiar with. However, more specific feedback we received was that students wanted a more complete definition of pH in addition to the introduction of the pH scale. So, we modified our lesson to include the pH scale with colors that correspond to the pH of many common household items that they should be familiar with. This allowed them to match the indicator paper color to pH and to observe the pH of one item relative to other items. We also included a more complete definition of pH with many illustrations to support our explanation. Students may not have been able to fully appreciate the quantitative derivation, but they were able to follow along with the explanation of the physical concept. We also expanded on the solutions that we used previously to include some of their favorite drinks and allowed them to mix their solutions to test the resulting pH and observe any reactions. Finally, more examples were given to students about the importance of pH in the human body and the environment so that the topic is more relevant to them.
Students had a more difficult time connecting with the microfluidics lesson as it was a topic that was completely novel to all of them. However, they were generally interested in observing the varying behavior of water on the Shrinky Dink paper and on printer paper and attempting to carve out their own microfluidics channels, however, they did struggle with the latter.
Since it was observed that students were frustrated with carving microfluidics channels but seemed to be attentive to the observation of water properties, the carving aspect was removed from the activity. Instead, we had students hypothesize and later compare and observe the behavior/movement of the water on the Shrinky Dink paper and on normal printer paper. We also had them attempt to break down the words important to the lesson such as ‘microfluidics’ so that they were better able to understand them. Additionally, to increase student engagement, we created synthetic biology-related stencils for the students to trace and color in on their Shrinky Dink paper that was used in this activity. This allowed us to talk about other tools used in synthetic biology, such as microscopes, pipettes, cells, and bacteria. Incorporating these stencils also allowed us to talk about how the microfluidic devices could be used with these tools. The stencils also allowed the students to design and make a keychain from the Shrinky Dink paper to take home at the end of the activity, which they were very excited about.
As much as they were excited about both the pH and microfluidics activities, they did not enjoy filling out worksheets, and these caused them to lose interest in the activity. So, to improve this, we opted to remove the worksheet aspect but to ask the worksheet questions orally instead of students or multiple groups of students. We also ensured that there was more repetition of questions and answers so that students had a solid grasp of the material by the end of the activity.
In the following weeks, we carried out our Genetic Murder Mystery and DNA extraction activities, which were slightly more advanced than the two previous activities.
The main difficulty with the Genetic Murder Mystery activity was teaching students words that they would have great difficulty breaking down. Based on this feedback, we made improvements to this activity by incorporating examples that they already know into our explanations. For example, we utilized the example of eye color in the definition of a trait, specific eye colors to define phenotype, etc. We increased the number of examples for each concept such as Punnett squares, working through many of them with the students to ensure that they were understanding them. We constantly checked in with students to ensure that they were following along with the explanation of Punnett squares. Additionally, the students struggled with the phrasing of our second clue, so we changed the phrasing of this clue. Overall, the students were able to complete the activity and retain the definitions of most of the words that they had been taught. This was seen in the students’ work and correct answers to the murder mystery, as they were able to correctly decipher what information was included in the clues and then successfully set up, solve and interpret the Punnett squares.
The DNA extraction activity, including explanations of DNA, was new to most of the students in the 6-11 age range. After our first attempt at carrying out this activity, we received feedback that the students did not get an appreciation of what DNA is and why it is important, nor did they get a clear explanation of the extraction process. In our subsequent teachings of this lesson, we added more illustrations of DNA and its location in the cell and emphasized its function with respect to the students’ physical traits. This aided in explaining the purpose of the reagents used in the extraction and the mechanism by which they extracted the DNA from strawberries.
Overall, we received positive feedback from most students where they reported that they had a great time carrying out the experiments and were generally very interested in science. From their feedback, we found that students loved testing the pH of substances and learned that substances that they used regularly were classed as acid, base, or neutral. They also said that they learned that fruits had DNA and were excited to extract and visualize it. Our most positive feedback was from a student who said that our activity was “better than recess,” which is great feedback to receive as these activities will be used in an elementary school during this school year.
Feedback we received from counselors at the Rochester Museum and Science Center the first day we did our pH activity. In future times when we ran this activity, we used more recognizable liquids and gave examples as to why pH was important.
Feedback we received from a counselor at Nazareth College Science Camp the first time we did our Microfluidics activity. The next time we did this activity we omitted the paperclip step and incorporated the use of pipettes.
Feedback we received from a counselor when doing the pH activity at Nazareth College Science Camp.
Additional feedback we received from a counselor when doing the pH activity.
Synthetic Biology Lessons
Nazareth College Science Camp
Nazareth College, located in Pittsford, NY, offered four weeks of a summer camp called “Nazareth College Science Camp” for students ages 6-16. For all four weeks, we ran our activities on Thursday mornings. During some weeks, the campers were split into an older and younger age group. In total, our activities reached approximately 140 campers, as we taught our lessons to seven different groups of roughly 20 students.
Activities Done:
- Microfluidics
- pH
- Genetic Murder Mystery
A team of students’ work from the younger age group at Nazareth College Science Camp. They were successfully able to work together to figure out who the culprit was in the Genetic Murder Mystery.
Feedback we received from a camper the first time we did our microfluidics activity at Nazareth College Science Camp. They were frustrated with the part of the experiment when we had students carve out their own microfluidic channels with paperclips.
Feedback we received from a camper the first time we did our microfluidics activity at Nazareth College Science Camp.
Stem Girls Roc
Stem Girls Roc was a one-week long camp that took place at the Renaissance Academy Charter School of the Arts in Greece, NY. It was catered to a diverse group of students from the inner city of Rochester. There were 25 girls in attendance, ranging from 10-13 years old, and thanks to a grant from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), they attended the camp free of charge. The students were exposed to science experiments, lessons, field trips, and most importantly, fellow women in science! Stem Girls Roc specifically focused on exposing underrepresented populations to science and showing young girls that they are capable of incredible success in the field. We spent the first half of the day with the campers, during which we taught our microfluidics lesson, and did a Q&A session with the students about what it looks like to be a scientist, what types of experiments we do, and what working in a lab and doing science is like.
Activities Done:
- Microfluidics
From left to right: Rochester Bio-Spire team members Adela Yan and Tracey Moyston have some fun practicing our microfluidics activity.
Rochester Bio-Spire team member Maria Schapfel (left) talks about microfluidic devices to the Stem Girls Roc campers.
Rochester Bio-Spire team member Maria Schapfel (center) discusses the different types of scientists drawn on the Shrinky Dink paper by the Stem Girls Roc Campers.
Final Stem Girls Roc Shrinky Dink keychains (part 1)
FFinal Stem Girls Roc Shrinky Dink keychains (part 2)
Stem Girls Roc campers’ Shrinky Dinks being shrunk in the oven.
Rochester Bio-Spire team member Adela Yan discusses microfluidic devices with Stem Girls Roc campers.
Stem Girls Roc campers design their own science-themed keychains using Shrinky Dink paper.
Girl Scouts of Western New York
We worked with Krystal Osei, the Interim Girl Experience Manager of the Girl Scouts of Western New York, to provide various science-focused activities for the troops. The troops are organized through the City of Rochester’s Recreation Centers, which provide social, cultural, and athletic opportunities for members of the Rochester community. We went to different locations around the city of Rochester—from a local park to a recreation center—and worked with four different troops. We worked with each troop one time, for roughly one hour. The girls were aged 4 to 14 years old, and the troop sizes ranged from 2 individuals to 15. Across the four troops, we worked with a total of 40 girls. In addition to teaching the different lessons, we also talked to the girls about what type of science work we do, as well as what it is like working in a lab.
Activities Done:
- pH
- Build your own DNA
A Girl Scout points out different pHs on litmus paper
Girl Scouts make DNA from pipe cleaners. This was their first time learning about the structure of DNA.
Rochester Museum and Science Center (RMSC)
RMSC is a science museum located in Rochester, NY, that held a summer “Curiosity Camp” for children aged 2-15. The camp ran for 9 weeks from June 28th-August 27th and has different science-themed groups each week. Campers typically signed up for a week at a time, with a new cohort every single week. We worked with the campers on Fridays for 5 weeks for about one hour. Each week we went in, we worked with 1 to 4 groups of 15 children each between the ages of 6 and 11 years old. This allowed for our activities to reach approximately 135 campers.
Activities Done:
- pH
- Genetic Murder Mystery
- DNA Extraction
- Build your own DNA
Rochester Bio-Spire team member Anca Frasineanu explains alleles to campers at RMSC.
A camper at RMSC points out which litmus paper strip was placed into a basic solution.
Feedback from a camper at RMSC. They enjoyed the part of the pH activity where the baking soda and vinegar solutions were mixed together.
Feedback from a camper at RMSC. They really enjoyed doing the pH activity.
Feedback we received from a camper at RMSC the first time we did the DNA extraction activity with them.
Feedback we received from a camper at RMSC the first time we did the DNA extraction activity with them. Multiple students requested to have more explanations about how the experiment worked scientifically, which we incorporated into our lesson the next time we taught it.
Upward Bound Math/Science
Upward Bound Math/Science is a pre-college program and is a part of the Federal TRIO Programs, which are Federal outreach and student services programs that are designed to provide services to low-income individuals, first-generation college students, and individuals with disabilities. The Upward Bound Math/Science program is designed to help strengthen the math and science skills of high school students who attend high schools in the Rochester City School District. This program encourages them to gain confidence in their academic skills and to pursue postsecondary degrees and careers in math and science. Activities and program events are held year-round for these students. Over the summer, Upward Bound Math/Science students attend four weeks of instructional lessons that allows them to get a taste of the college educational experience.7 The lessons that take place over the summer are taught by University of Rochester faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students.
This summer, the four weeks of instruction occurred in July and were virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of this, we provided the students with three asynchronous lessons which included an experiment and worksheet for the students to do and fill out to get credit for participating in the lesson. These lessons were designed to be between 30 and 45 minutes long and the videos for them are uploaded in the iGEM Video Universe. The materials the students needed to carry out the experiments were packaged and delivered to the students prior to the start of the program by its director, Ms. Danielle Daniels. We also had the opportunity to teach a one-hour long, online synchronous lesson to the students. When we taught this synchronous lesson, we had the students work together in groups to fill out the worksheet and figure out who the culprit was in our murder mystery.
Activities Done:
- pH
- Design-a-Plasmid (asynchronous)
- Microfluidics (asynchronous)
- Genetic Murder Mystery (synchronous)
Feedback we received from Upward Bound students. These students did these activities asynchronously by following along with the corresponding videos that are uploaded on the iGEM video universe page. Note: The students were asked to rate on a scale of 1-5, 1 corresponding to awful and 5 corresponding to awesome.
Feedback we received from Upward Bound students. These students did this activity in an online synchronous format. Note: The students were asked to rate on a scale of 1-5, 1 corresponding to awful and 5 corresponding to awesome.
The Highlands at Pittsford
The Highlands at Pittsford is an independent and assisted living retirement community located in Pittsford, New York. It hosts a diverse array of educational programs and lectures that interested senior residents can attend. Because of their commitment to lifelong learning for their residents, we were able to come in and give an hour-long lecture about iGEM, synthetic biology, sepsis, and our project. We presented to a group of about 15 residents in-person, and had another 10 or so residents who attended our presentation through video conferencing. The attendees were very actively engaged during our presentation. They asked a variety of questions about the iGEM competition, our team structure, how pi-pi stacking works, how we designed our microfluidic device and what parameters we had to consider when designing it. The residents were very interested in hearing more about the global aspects of the iGEM competition and what we personally were working on in our team. The lecture also seemed to pique their interest in how science is evolving, and we even got a request asking for more lectures from our school-- specifically on gene editing!
From left to right: Rochester Bio-Spire team members Maria Schapfel, Tracey Moyston, and Nikol Pritsky after presenting to the residents at The Highlands of Pittsford.
Rochester Prison Education Project Video and Workshop
Through the University of Rochester’s Rochester Education Justice Initiation (REJI), we were able to have synthetic biology material shared and taught to incarcerated individuals at a correctional facility located in Upstate New York. REJI is a program that is dedicated to prison education, and both helps to educate incarcerated individuals in the greater Rochester area and educates members in the Rochester community about America’s mass incarceration crisis. In terms of educating incarcerated individuals, REJI has University of Rochester faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students teach for-credit courses to incarcerated students. By having courses available to incarcerated individuals, it allows them to gain skills and resources that will help them to reintegrate into the community.8 REJI has partnered with Genesee Community College, located in Batavia, NY, and has created an associate degree-granting college program with them that serves at a New York State prison located in Upstate New York. This is an important program, as education is shown to empower individuals and reduce recidivism rates. It also allows for the students to pursue higher education once they are released.9
In order to be able to share our materials with students, we worked with Dr. Eitan Freedenberg, the assistant director of programming of REJI, and Dr. Anusha Naganathan, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Rochester. Dr. Freedenberg helped us in the process of getting approval to go to the correctional facility and teach our lesson to the incarcerated students. Three iGEM team members will be teaching the incarcerated students about the central dogma, plasmids, and leading them in the Design-a-Plasmid activity on November 1st. This lesson will take a maximum of 3 hours, and Dr. Anusha Naganthan will be serving as our supervisor when we are teaching the lesson. In order to be able to do this, we had to go through various levels of approval. Through our meeting with Dr. Freedenberg, we found out that we would not be able to use materials such as pipe cleaners, paperclips, and pipettes in our activity, which limited some of the activities that we considered doing. This also resulted in us learning about the differences in the accessibility of our activities. We also learned that we would need special permission to write about our experience teaching at the facility. Additionally, we learned that the best way to obtain feedback would be verbally, but that we would not be able to quote feedback in a report.
Dr. Anusha Naganathan is heavily involved in running the biology curriculum that is taught to the incarcerated individuals. Part of this curriculum includes using videos to teach lab modules. Dr. Naganathan uses videos to make science more accessible to the incarcerated individuals and teach them about how experiments are run in labs, as it is extremely difficult to receive approval for the equipment needed for the incarcerated students to do their own science lab experiments. We worked with Dr. Naganathan and a team of professional filmmakers to develop a short film that explains synthetic biology concepts, lab techniques, iGEM, and our project as a whole. This video will be shown to the incarcerated individuals this spring.
Activities Done:
- Design-a-Plasmid
Rochester Bio-Spire team members meet with Dr. Eitan Freedenberg to discuss the Rochester Prison Education Project.
Top row (left to right): Rochester Bio-Spire team members Tracey Moyston and Maria Schapfel
Middle row (left to right): Rochester Bio-Spire team members Anca Frasineau and Nikol Pritsky
Bottom row (left to right): Dr. Eitan Freedenberg
Rochester Bio-Spire team member Tracey Moyston running an experiment.
Rochester Bio-Spire team members Muskaan Vasandani (front) and Tracey Moyston (middle) discuss results of an experiment while team member Anca Frasineanu (back) works on calculations for an experiment.
From left to right: Rochester Bio-Spire team members Muskaan Vasandani, Tiana Salomon, Ena Haseljic, Daniel Nakamura, and Tracey Moyston discuss rGO.
From left to right: A still from Rochester Bio-Spire team members Muskaan Vasandani, Tiana Salomon, Ena Haseljic, Daniel Nakamura, and Tracey Moyston’s discussion about rGO.
From left to right: Rochester Bio-Spire Team members Tiana Salomon and Ena Haseljic discuss molds for our microfluidic device
Exploration Elementary Charter School for Science & Technology
We met with Ms. Margaret Chefalo, who is the STEM coordinator at Exploration Elementary Charter School for Science & Technology, located in Rochester, NY, about the possibility of implementing our activities into the school’s science curriculum. This school serves 475 students in grades K-4. We sent her all of the materials shown above and she was enthusiastic about having access to these activities. Ms. Chefalo is currently integrating these activities into the school’s curriculum.
Activities Done:
- pH
- Microfluidics
- Genetic Murder Mystery
- Design-a-Plasmid
- DNA Extraction
- Build-Your-Own DNA
From left to right: Nikol Pritsky (Rochester Bio-Spire), Ms. Margaret Chefalo, and Maria Schapfel (Rochester Bio-Spire) meet to discuss the addition of activities into Exploration Elementary Charter School for Science & Technology’s curriculum.
Note: All adults shown consented to having their picture taken and used on our wiki and all minors shown had parents/guardians sign consent forms allowing for photos to be taken and published.
References
- Morin, A. What is universal design for Learning (UDL)? https://www.understood.org/articles/en/universal-design-for-learning-what-it-is-and-how-it-works (accessed Sep 8, 2021).
- Posey, A. Universal design for Learning (UDL): A teacher's guide https://www.understood.org/articles/en/understanding-universal-design-for-learning (accessed Sep 8, 2021).
- Provide Multiple Means of Engagement https://udlguidelines.cast.org/engagement (accessed Sep 17, 2021).
- Provide multiple means of Representation https://udlguidelines.cast.org/representation (accessed Sep 17, 2021).
- Provide multiple means of Action & Expression https://udlguidelines.cast.org/action-expression (accessed Sep 17, 2021).
- Posey, A. Lesson Planning with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) https://www.understood.org/articles/en/lesson-planning-with-universal-design-for-learning-udl (accessed Oct 11, 2021).
- The David T. Kearns Center Pre-College Programs https://www.rochester.edu/college/kearnscenter/pre-college/trio-programs.html (accessed Oct 18, 2021).
- Rochester Education Justice Initiative Overview http://www.sas.rochester.edu/reji/about/index.html (accessed Oct 18, 2021).
- Rochester Education Justice Initiative History http://www.sas.rochester.edu/reji/about/history.html (accessed Oct 18, 2021).