Team:BostonU/Education/Upward Bound

Upward Bound Nanotechnology

We were thrilled to invite Boston area high school students participating in the Upward Bound Nanotechnology Program to the lab. Our goal for the day was twofold: expose these students to synthetic biology and inspire their curiosity, especially in STEM.

We opened the day with a presentation about syn bio and a round-table discussion about what it meant to them and proposed ethical dilemmas that we would return to at the end of the day. Once they were engaged, we asked about their ideas for creative applications of synthetic biology. The most popular idea was a “flying dog” so we chose to explore that example in depth. We talked to the students about the feasibility such as how far away is science from genetically engineering dogs that fly? And responsibility, is there a purpose for a flying dog? Furthermore, familiarity, would you like your dog to be able to fly? The students began forming insightful opinions about applications of synthetic biology, and started to think if a flying dog was really what they would want to create.

After that we gave them a hands on tour of the lab in which they were able to learn about restriction digestion and plating bacteria. This gave them an introduction to what researchers do on a daily basis, and hopefully we intrigued them enough so that STEM drives their educations!

We came back to ethical questions at the end of the day, and the students had trouble answering them. They decided that it was more important to discuss these ideas rather than make decisive conclusions. We sincerely hope that these students walked away with a greater understanding and a desire to keep learning about synthetic biology!