Difference between revisions of "Team:Wellesley TheTech/Project/Wetlab"
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| − | <p>The community we serve has one of the highest levels of diversity in the US, both racially and economically. The Tech serves 400,000 to 500,000 people each year, with most of those visitors falling into two categories: families and school groups. The majority, about 280,000+, | + | <p>The community we serve has one of the highest levels of diversity in the US, both racially and economically. The Tech serves 400,000 to 500,000 people each year, with most of those visitors falling into two categories: families and school groups. The majority, about 280,000+, are family groups containing children between the ages of 8 and 18. According to our annual visitor assessment, the average party size is 1.8 adults and 1.2 children. About 68% of visiting parties include children and the average age of these kids is 8.7. The second largest audience is school groups. More than one in four museum guests -- or 120,000 of The Tech’s annual visitors -- are students attending as part of classroom field trips. These groups consist mostly of children ages 10 or older and 60% are from low-income Title 1 schools. |
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Revision as of 18:10, 18 September 2015
Background: The Tech
Visitor Demographics
The community we serve has one of the highest levels of diversity in the US, both racially and economically. The Tech serves 400,000 to 500,000 people each year, with most of those visitors falling into two categories: families and school groups. The majority, about 280,000+, are family groups containing children between the ages of 8 and 18. According to our annual visitor assessment, the average party size is 1.8 adults and 1.2 children. About 68% of visiting parties include children and the average age of these kids is 8.7. The second largest audience is school groups. More than one in four museum guests -- or 120,000 of The Tech’s annual visitors -- are students attending as part of classroom field trips. These groups consist mostly of children ages 10 or older and 60% are from low-income Title 1 schools.
Approach to Exhibits
The Tech’s approach to exhibits is a shift from the more traditional science education learning outcome goals. We highly value, and are experts in, design challenge learning based programs and interactive exhibits. The top priority of these experiences is not the content itself, but instead the development of skills and confidence with the exhibition topic. We aim to empower visitors to think innovatively and solve diverse problems.The Tech’s primary pedagogical approach is to engage participants in our innovation design process: We pose a challenge or invite participants to find their own “why” for engaging in the design process. We help participants imagine different possible solutions; create by building their solution or a model of their solution; test those solutions and then iterate to improve design results; reflect on what they learned and how their solution performed; and share those results with others.
BioDesign Exhibition
General
The Tech’s upcoming BioDesign exhibition will engage the public in interactive exhibits that spark imagination and confidence with the burgeoning fields of DIY biology, synthetic biology, and biodesign. It will engage the public in a combination of digital and real-life biological experiences that are both meaningful and personal. Importantly, the exhibition will deliver much more than just knowledge about these exciting subjects and cutting-edge technologies. It will be a place where people of all ages can personally create with biology. Visitors will be empowered to play, tinker, and design with the basic rules and building blocks of life. By demystify biodesign, we will help visitors build confidence in this dynamic field and gain new perspective to fuel creative problem‐solving.
Biotinkering Workshop
Importantly, we want to allow visitors to tinker with biology in the real world and hope to link these experiences to other exhibits whenever possible. Part of the exhibition space will be transformed into a working community biolab: The Biotinkering Workshop. In the same way that makerspaces are connecting people to electronics and mechanical engineering, we hope to make the rising world of DIY biology accessible to all. This ambitious space will house an array of biomaterials and tools to allow visitors to personally experiment in open-ended ways with biology as a technology and form of creative expression.
WETLAB COMPONENT
Description of above image
Goal
The goal of the wetlab component of BacPack is to connect the digital experience to a hands-on, lab-based one. In the digital activity visitors explore designing bacteria to have a variety of new, useful functions for helping humans survive in different extreme environments. In the wetlab activity visitors get try their hands at the same real-world process of engineering a bacteria to have a new property of their choosing.
Activity Design Outline
Visitors transform a living bacteria to make it do something new:
-5 DNA options that change the physical appearance of bacteria in different ways
-Each ‘color’ represents a bacteria function that can provide one of the 5 needs on Mars
-Visitors pick the DNA they want to use and transform e.coli with it
-They can see a photo of their grown ‘mars bacteria’ several days later
Development
Plasmids:
Selected 5 bioBricks from the iGEM distribution kit:
-Lux Operon (BBa_K325909) - Bioluminescence pathway
amilGFP (BBa_K592010) - Yellow chromoprotein
aeBlue (BBa_K864401) - Blue chromoprotein
eforRed (BBa_K592012) - Red/pink chromoprotein
asPink (BBa_K1033933) - Pink/purple chromoprotein
Transformation
Optimized to be accessible/easy for walk-up museum visitors of all ages and skill levels:
Reagents (pre-made by staff):
- 6cm LB-agar plates with 25 ug/ml Chloramphenicol
- Plasmid DNA in 100ul CaCl2
- 20 ul competent bacteria
Transformation protocol (done by visitors):
- Combine 100 DNA with 20 ul of competent bacteria
- 30 sec on ice
- 40 sec heat shock at 42 degrees C
- Plate out bacteria and put in incubator
Mobile Lab Setup
Pic of mobile lab layout from testing at The Tech IMAGE IN G DOC
-Equipment included: heat block, cooler, incubator, transfer pipettes, spreaders, tube racks, and the biological reagents listed above.
-Different plasmid DNA were linked in the mobile lab background graphics to one of the 5 needs in BacPack’s Mars environment:
-Lux Operon = oxygen
-aeBlue = water
-amilGFP = food
-eforRed = heat
-asPink = fuel
- Visitors pick what bacteria they want to engineer, based on what resource they want to contribute to Mars and are given that DNA to use in their personal ‘petri dish design area: IMAGE IN GOOGLE DOC’
- The wetlab Mars activity was designed to be facilitated by staff. This makes the experience more personable as well as support more in depth discussion of the biology, the technology, and its implications.
Safety
The weltlab side of Bac Pack posed limited safety risks. We did not employ any dangerous organisms or reagents. The plasmids used were well-characterized ones from the iGEM distribution kit and transformations were done using E.coli. All wetlab work and prototyping with visitors on the floor adhered to standard BSL1 biosafety guidelines. This includes adequate training and oversight for techniques and equipment, proper containment, cleanup and disposal of chemicals, biological reagents and hazardous waste, appropriate use of PPE and adherence to standard microbiological practices.