William & Mary Bioengineering Lab
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Outreach
Bioengineering Outreach
Over the course of the past few years, W&M iGEM teams and researchers in the Bioengineering Lab have worked with students, teachers, and legislators to do hands-on activities, teach about bioengineering, and discuss ethics and safety in synthetic biology. Learn more by expanding each tab below.
education outreach
Camp Launch (July 2017)
The 2017 W&M iGEM team collaborated with the School of Education's Center for Gifted Education to host 32 middle school students in the Bioengineering Lab in July, 2017. Students learned about synthetic and molecular biology through hands-on activities. The students learned how to extract DNA from strawberries, how to prepare and run a gel to determine the size of DNA fragments, and how to streak plates with recombinant bacteria containing RFP (red fluorescent protein).
Focusing on the Future (July 2017)
Two members of the 2017 W&M iGEM team participated in an event called Focusing on the Future, which is hosted by the School of Education and a tool to get middle school students interested in finding careers in STEM. About 30 students attended the presentation and participated in a hands-on activity to build a recombinant plasmid!
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Building with Biology (2016)
The 2016 W&M iGEM team held a science workshop targeted at at local children and their parents which allowed them to get some hands-on experience with the exciting world of modern biology. There were more than 70 people in attendance and together they extracted DNA from strawberries, learned about synthetic biology and the benefit of standard biological parts, and discussed questions and concerns with GMO food. This workshop was made possible by a grant from Building with Biology.
Genome Editing Forum (2016)
The 2016 W&M iGEM team held a forum on the topic of Genome Editing targeted at the general public. At the forum, participants discussed the implications of the CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing tool and explored various ways that it could be applied to real world problems. Among the topics discussed were: stabilizing the honeybee population by increasing expression of ‘hygiene’ genes, engineering yeast for efficient biofuel production, and using CRISPR to decrease human susceptibility to HIV infection. There were over 30 participants and the team received great feedback from their attendees!
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Girl Scouts Synthetic Biology Workshops (July 2015)
On July 18, the 2015 W&M iGEM team invited Girl Scouts from all over the Colonial Coast division to attend a Synthetic Biology workshop, complete with an official Synthetic Biology badge that the team developed through the Girl Scouts organization. They also invited parents, guardians, and troop leaders to attend these workshops with the girls and held "What is SynBio?" and ethics discussions with them to address the concerns and misconceptions about synthetic biology and that were previously gathered via survey. The team worked with all ages; the first session was for Cadettes & Ambassadors, and the second session was for Brownies and Juniors. Every participant had the chance to load a gel with food coloring and watch as the colors separated by weight, to extract DNA from bananas, and to image fluorescent bacteria with the confocal microscope. In addition, the younger girls learned about DNA structure by making Twizzler and marshmallow models, and the adults and older girls all got to draw on plates with RFP and GFP expressing E. coli while learning about how synthetic biologists use antibiotics to select for the bacteria we want, and they made plasmid bracelets.
Center For Gifted Education (July 2015)
On July 11, excited 4th-6th graders came to the lab to get a taste of a professional lab atmosphere and try their hands at laboratory techniques! The students got to extract banana DNA and build their candy DNA models, and also had the opportunity to run gel electrophoresis on the food coloring of their choice. Students loaded the gels themselves, and tried every color of the rainbow! They loved seeing the orange, green, and purple split into the primary colors (plus some pink). The students were so quick to pick up on how the differences in molecular sizes accounted for how far the dyes ran on the gel. It turned out blue was the heaviest, right around the same size as pink, and the yellow was the lightest-- it ran the furthest on the gels. Finally, the W&M iGEM team also taught the participants a little about transcriptional noise and the imaging system they used to analyze how noisy the promoters are. The team showed students some slides on our confocal microscope, and they watched as the RFP-expressing bacteria wriggled on the screen.
Learning Fun School (June 2015)
At Learning Fun School, students learned to extract banana and cheek cell DNA, discussed and modeled the structure of DNA with candy, explored the idea of genes and alleles, matched base pairs to form double stranded DNA, analyzed pictures of gel electrophoresis to determine the length of DNA samples, modified egg protein structures with heat and force, and explored how a sequence of DNA can store instructions for life.
King Solomon's Christian Academy (June 2015)
At KSCA, W&M iGEM researchers helped students learn about DNA. The students modeled DNA with candy, matched base pairs to form double stranded DNA, and learned about alleles and genes.
Bruton High School (June 2015)
When Bruton High School's AP Biology came to visit the W&M 2015 iGEM team, they ran a gel, extracted banana DNA, and streaked plates with bacteria that express red fluorescent protein. W&M iGEM also discussed safety in synthetic biology, a topic that tied in with their project on transcriptional noise.
publicizing bioengineering research
Summer Bioengineering Speaker Series (July 2017)
The 2017 W&M iGEM team collaborated with faculty to organize and host a Bioengineering Speaker Series. This series was open to students, faculty, and the general public, and it was a platform for professors to talk about the interesting bioengineering research that they do in their labs. There was a total attendance of about 100 people across all three events. To learn more about the professors who spoke, click here.
Boyle Society (April 2017)
About 50 members of the Boyle Society, a charitable society at The College of William & Mary, visited the Bioengineering Lab and learned about iGEM, synthetic biology, and how bioengineers use 3D printing. The 2017 W&M iGEM team led a strawberry DNA extraction activity and talked about the important research that occurs in the Bioengineering Lab. Dr. Laurie Sanderson talked about the role of 3D printing in her research.
Connecting with legislators
Virginia Senator Dick SaslawVirginia Senator Dick Saslaw serves as a member of the Senate Subcommittee on Higher Education and on the Finance Committee, specifically on the Education Subcommittee. As a Virginia public research university, William & Mary relies on funding provided by the state government. Senator Saslaw visited the Bioengineering Lab on May 31, 2017. Two members of the 2017 W&M iGEM team talked to him about synthetic biology, bioengineering, and the importance of the research that occurs at the College of William & Mary.
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U.S. Representative Scott TaylorRepresentative Scott Taylor visited the Bioengineering Lab on April 24, 2017. Representative Taylor is the United States Representative for Virginia's 2nd Congressional District, which encompasses counties that are geographically close to the College of William & Mary. Members of the 2017 W&M iGEM team talked to Representative Taylor about the importance of the research that occurs at William & Mary, both for our area of Virginia and nationally, as well as the importance of the quickly growing field of Life Sciences for the Virginia economy and job market.
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Virginia Senator Monty MasonOn July 10, 2017, Virginia Senator Monty Mason visited the Bioengineering Lab to learn more about the research opportunities at William & Mary. The W&M iGEM team introduced the field of synthetic biology and their iGEM project. Senator Mason's congressional district includes Williamsburg and the College of William & Mary, so the iGEM team was excited to talk to him about the scientific research that occurs and discuss the education outreach at the Bioengineering Lab with local public school students.
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Educational Material
Synthetic Biology Activities Booklet
The 2015 W&M iGEM team developed an activities booklet that contains fun synthetic biology activities for all ages. They made the booklet available to other iGEM teams and local public school teachers. The 2017 W&M iGEM edited and expanded the booklet, and will distribute it to teachers at teacher workshops they plan to host during the fall semester. Additionally, the 2017 team is making an effort to make these activities more readily available to whomever would like to use them. Click on the links below to view the booklets.
Outreach Database
The 2017 W&M iGEM team is in the process of creating an iGEM outreach database for iGEM teams, synthetic biologists, and educators. The database will be a compilation of outreach projects from iGEM teams who won gold medals. Projects are documented in a standardized way to make it more accessible and easier to compare different projects. Additionally, the team created tags for categories such as audience and goals so the database is easily searchable. The 2017 W&M iGEM team hopes that this database can be a useful tool for other iGEM teams who can more easily analyze past outreach projects and can build on it in their current outreach efforts. They also hope that other scientists who want ideas on organizing community outreach can use this database as a resource. Lastly, they aim to make the database a useful tool for educators who want to find synthetic biology activities that they can use in their classrooms.
Awards and recognitions
The 2015 W&M iGEM team won Best Education and Public Engagement in the iGEM Giant Jamboree.
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The 2016 W&M iGEM outreach efforts were funded by a grant from Building with Biology, a synthetic biology education nonprofit.
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