Team:DTU-Denmark/Education
Public knowledge of synthetic biology is often limited to genetically modified food products while very few are aware of the widespread use of cell factories in industrial production, so addressing this area was of prime importance to the project. Similarly, the general public’s impression of filamentous fungi can be summarised with the phrases ‘Ew! Mould!’ and ‘Ooh! Cheese!’. Unfortunately, the varying and unpredictable levels of restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic have meant that we were unable to user test and implement our educational activities to the intended extent.
Children
School aged children are eager to learn and often less resistant to new technologies than older generations. They are the consumers, researchers and politicians of the future and thought and will influence the direction of the world for many years to come. This makes children an important target audience when presenting novel technologies.Schools
We developed a short workshop about filamentous fungi, synthetic biology in industrial production, and our project aimed at primary school students which was presented at schools both physically and virtually during the Danish science festival, Naturvidenskabsfestivalen. We made it a priority to target our communication to our audience and aimed to refine our materials based on feedback from focus groups. Unfortunately many of our planned presentations were cancelled due to Covid-19 restrictions, but feedback from the visited schools was very positive.To aid students’ understanding of genetic modification in a tangible way, two inquiry based learning activities using LEGO to build DNA were constructed - one for middle to late years of primary schooling and one for late years of primary to secondary schooling. The model focuses on the DNA code, where most models for children focus on modelling the helix structure. This allows a tangible exploration of one of the key concepts of synthetic biology: genetic modification.
Different LEGO bricks are used to represent each of the four DNA nucleotides - A, T, C, and G. In the version for younger students, each three-block combination (codon) represents a different word (see figure below). In the version for older students, each three-block combination is linked to the real codon combinations and the amino acid one-letter codes are used to spell different words - representing genes - and sentences - representing operons or multi-gene traits. The words and sentences which are formed when assembling codons are then used to discuss errors in the code (mutations) and how some words go together to form sentences and others form gibberish.
A unit plan was produced to act as inspiration for teachers, at different levels of schooling, using our materials as a starting point to further explore synthetic biology. The unit plan was aligned to the Danish schools’ common goals (Folkeskolens fælles mål) in science and biology (natur/teknologi og biologi) and the Danish higher preparatory exam curriculum (HF lærerplan) in science (Naturvidenskabelig faggruppe). The resources have been shared with school and high school teachers around Denmark through social media and in personal meetings with teachers.
Comic
Through our collaboration with IIT Madras the first parts of a comic was produced to introduce concepts around filamentous fungi and synthetic biology to young children. The comic was produced in English and subsequently translated into Danish.Click on the teasers below to download the comics as PDF.
English comic series
Danish tegneserie
University students
We targeted university students as they are prospective future participants in iGEM and prospective researchers in the field of synthetic biology, so spreading enthusiasm for the field in this group may have a significant impact on the future of synthetic biology. In collaboration with the DTU students’ association, we hosted a workshop during the university’s introduction week for new Master’s students. The goal was to introduce iGEM and the types of challenges one faces through the competition, and to entice students to join the team in the future. The workshop consisted of an introductory talk where we presented iGEM, our team, and our project followed by groups of students working on a small series of open ended case studies based on challenges our team has faced over the course of the project. We then finished off with a plenary discussion and question time to encourage exploratory dialogue.Crafting community
During the Covid-19 lockdowns, crafts have had a resurgence as people looked for a way to reduce stress, pass long hours at home, and connect to others across the world. We designed, wrote, and published two crochet patterns which are fun to make, look interesting, and at the same time highlight the core of our project - the morphology of fungi. This was also inspired by the popular GIANTmicrobes plush toys - whose selection of fungi is sadly very narrow.To make the patterns attractive to crafters of varying levels, picture tutorials were produced with alt text for images and narration for the video. These tutorials are inlaid in the pattern pdfs. The patterns were published on the yarn crafts website Ravelry, which is one of the largest crafting communities in the world and is visited by approximately 1 million users per month. The patterns are also accessible below for download for non-members and news of the patterns was spread through social media.
Click on the images below to access the pattern pdfs.
The Aspergillus conidiophore lets the crafter create their own version of the beautiful spore-forming part of Aspergillus niger, the organism which we have spent the year modifying.
The mushroom with hyphae is a more traditional toadstool type plushie. However, an effort was made to make it more biologically accurate by adding hyphae around the bottom.
