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Education is a key aspect of iGEM Warwick’s work this year. The importance of sharing knowledge, creating resources, and educating the next generation of students on the vast array of topics within Biology is paramount.
Our aim was exactly that, to create educational resources to share knowledge and teach others about the field of Synthetic Biology. iGEM Warwick believed the best way to do this was to create an IGEM Collective Magazine which would contain entries from a range of iGEM teams globally describing their project, the importance of synthetic biology to their project, the impact of their project and also a research task. We wanted to introduce to students 16-18 year olds who would be embarking on their KS5 qualification (pre university), the vast application synthetic biology has and the solutions it can create to current issues being faced. With each iGEM team involved in the booklet submitting a research tasks for students to complete it will allow them to further develop their knowledge on a range of areas of synthetic biology and complete independent learning in the areas which interest them the most, which gives the student autonomy over their own learning which will allow them to find what really interests them.
IGEM Warwick initially reached out to IGEM teams via a campaign on social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. We created a google form which contained 4 questions for teams to complete which was made available via our social media platforms and also by direct request. We collated the information from the forms and dedicated a page to each team in the booklet and simplified some terms and description in order to adapt it to our target audience (16-18 year olds). We included a brief introduction page describing iGEM, synthetic biology and aim of the booklet furthermore we also had a tracker page where students could highlight each IGEM team name when they have completed their task. At the end of the booklet their was a certificate of achievement for student to fill in themselves as evidence that the have completed the research tasks in the booklet. This booklet was distributed to widening participation school in and around Coventry which is the city the University of Warwick is based in. It was made available to teachers in school via a monthly newsletter created by the Outreach team at the department of Science, Engineering and Maths and is also available to access on their website. https://www.canva.com/design/DAEilsL-k1M/75ZTPjU7mcVP7iwn9TrXkQ/view
A second version of the booklet was created which was unedited therefore was not simplified and was made available to members of BIOSOC ( University of Warwick Life Sciences Society). This was made available on their website alongside an article on aim of booklet and iGEM overall. Research and Internships | Warwick BioSoc
The booklet was also distributed to all team which participated in order for their to share the resource in their country and with schools local to their university.
Overall the booklet contained entries from 20 teams over the 3 different continents (Asia, Europe, North America).
The importance of sharing knowledge and providing support for the next cohort of university of students was another important educational aspect to iGEM Warwick. Therefore we contact Nuffield Foundation to express an interest in hosting students (16-18 year olds ) to complete a research project with iGEM Warwick. We were able to host 2 students in July for 2 weeks to assist them on their research essay and also research poster. As this was their first introduction to academic writing and posters in this manner we hosted biweekly meetings as well as extra meetings if needed to assist them in the process . This included helping them to understand scientific terminology they have not come across before in research papers, introducing them to referencing and the basic backbone of a research paper as well as advising them on where to find resources and also attending presentations given by our primary PI Dr Christopher Corre on different topics they could base their research on, including antibiotic resistance and also natural sunscreens based from marine life. We also hosted presentations on different iGEM Warwick team projects from 2016-2021 to allow them to start exploring the range of applications synthetic Biology has and what area in particular they may want to focus their research on.
A meeting with the Nuffield placement students
Using our social media pages such as Instagram we spread the awareness of other IGEM Team educational projects such as iGEM KCL and we also made available via our social media pages educational posters.
A social media ‘story’ for outreach on Instagram
At iGEM Warwick we created educational posters on different topics such as Microorganisms in hospitals, PCR, Carbapenem resistance Enterobacteriaceae and ethics in synthetic biology. This was made available by filling out a google form via a link on our social media pages for teams to provide their email address in order for us to send the posters to them. This will allow them to have access the poster in PDF form in English for them use in their own educational campaigns when working with schools or to send to schools and teachers to distribute to their students. The posters are basic introductions in to topics with short bursts of information in order for it to be easier to understand by our target audience which is 11-15 years old.
Through our education aims we set we wanted to target a range of age groups from our resources and initiatives in order to make information and resources on synthetic biology accessible to a range of students and different stages of their academic learning. We believe we have achieved this by using posters, booklets, social media and by hosting students personally as well as involving a range of iGEM teams so that they can also further spread the resources and knowledge of biology and the topic of synthetic Biology even further in their own countries.
LMSU invited those who identify as Female from iGEM Warwick Team to a Fem club talk hosted by them where we discussed our projects, issues females face working in science how our countries are working towards tackling issues females face as well as improving inclusivity of females in STEM fields and opportunities for females to work and study STEM. We went through issues faced by females in the UK ,Switzerland Russia as well as solutions and changes occurring. This was a fantastic opportunity to learn more from different teams about educational opportunities for females as well as share ideas on what should be done to make STEM fields more open to females.
A meeting of the LMSU FEM club
iGEM Warwick were invited on the 30th September to present to the new 1st year Life sciences cohort at the University of Warwick the GEM Competition and our project for 2021. This was done via a presentation created and presented on Microsoft teams. The aim was to introduce the competition to students and why they should get involved and participate in iGEM as well as explain our project this year using models created and also the outreach and collaboration work we have done. We wanted to show them the range of aspects which make up the iGEM competition and the range of areas of synthetic biology they can work in and therefore its significance. As this was an introduction to students unaware previously of what iGEM is and with little knowledge on what synthetic biology is also, we wanted to present to them a taster of iGEM and Syn Bio in order to get them interested in getting involved in the iGEM Warwick Team 2022.
