Team:USAFA/Education
Education
Getting science education and outreach was harder this year due to COVID-19 risks, but nothing stops USAFA iGEM!
This year we decided that our materials needed to be current, a good use of technology, and fun. As most people, especially kids, are stuck at home, we thought informative coloring pages, music videos, and fun experiments would be a great thing to provide. These materials can be used to for any age group from elementary children and up! We hope these materials inspire more knowledge about our project and STEM in general. By asking to see your colored pages, we hope that a new dialogue can be made between our team and interested learners!
Coloring Pages!
Below we have coloring pages where kids and adults can learn about microbes in a fun and artistic way.
right click, save as, and then print!
Delftia acidovorans
A true gold digger!
This rod shaped, gram-negative bacteria is known for its ability to absorb gold ions and produce molecular gold on the back side! It also has dehalogenase genes which we used in our project! Cool right?
E. coli
The Replicator!
E. coli is a gram-negative bacillus bacteria. It is one of the most used bacteria in synthetic biology due to its quick replication and high protein expression. Our project used this bacteria to transform new proteins for detection and degradation of PFAS.
Pseudomonas fluorescens
A biotic that makes antibiotics?
This gram negative rod shaped bacteria is not known to be much of a problem to humans and can produce mupirocin when cultured. We used the bacteria as a positive control in our EtFA experiment.
Fan Art, Submissions, and Questions!
Whether you use our coloring pages or are feeling creative yourself, we'd love to see your work! Below is an example of a cartoon PFAS molecule! Please send any cool art you've made or questions you have to c22eamon.mchugh@usafa.edu. We'd love to hear from you. You can also fill out THIS form to submit questions or comments!
Fun PFAS Music Video
USAFA iGEM's own, C1C Twee Pham, lead the team with the production capabilities of Cpt Sitko to produce a music video about PFAS and our project. This is just another way the USAFA iGEM team has attempted to increase outreach and communication. As everyone learns differently and is interested in different things, we added music to our teaching arsenal!
Click the button to go to the music video on Youtube
Biomagnification Experiment Video
Here is a video of C2C Eamon McHugh walking through a fun and easy experiment to observe the idea of biomagnification. This video will walk through biomagnification, and how pollutants and contaminants can make their way up the food chain which affects all of us!!
Triservice Microbiome Consortium Presentation
Our very own, C1C Jackson Harris, presented our project to the Triservice microbiome consortium presentation which includes professional scientist and researchers from the Air Force, Navy, and Army about current work in the microbiome field.
BEFORE COVID-19
Team USAFA participated in the Science Olympiad Competition at UCCS. We supervised and judged for protein modeling at this event.
