Technion Israel iGEM High School Team 2015

This year, we mentored a group of high school students who are participating in the 2015 iGEM High School track. This is the first year ever in which Israeli high school teams are participating in the iGEM competition.

In order to give the high schoolers an introduction to synthetic biology and genetic engineering, we put together an introductory course in order to teach them the basics. Our lesson plans have been added on this page for future use with all iGEM teams.

When I started studying at Technion, I didn't really know what I was getting myself into with Biotechnology. I had no idea what that was or that it even involved genetic engineering of any kinds. As a high school student, I was never exposed to the idea of genetic engineering, much less the possibility of doing it on my own! We've all heard the cliche that children are the future, but high school students are right on the verge of having to make the important decision of which life pathway to follow, making it a critical time to get exposure to as many fields as possible, including synthetic biology. We went from seeing a group of high school student more interested in computer programming than listening to use, to seeing the team develop a complex and impressive genetic circuit.

We encourage iGEMers to use our lesson plans to help spread the word about synthetic biology and iGEM to students around the world.