Team:Toulouse/Practices
Practices
The iGEM competition is not all about wet lab and finding sponsors. To breath life into a project public contact is paramout. When we first started to reach out to the public we realised that the decline in bee population was a well known issue, in spite of this, most of the people interviewed weren't aware of the Varroa destructor influence.
ExpoSciences Midi-Pyrénées
Communication in high school
ExpoSciences International
Looking forward
ExpoSciences Midi-Pyrénées
Our team took part to regional ExpoSciences in Toulouse. This event brings together scientists of all ages and levels who want to share scientific knowledges. It’s a good exercise which enables to explain what’s synthetic biology. Given that DNA is our main work tool, we decided to let the children try out banana DNA extraction, with ethanol and dishwashing soap. The stand having drawn everybody’s attention, our intervention has been broadcasted on a local TV (TLT), and we also have been selected to take part to International ExpoSciences.
Recipe for a successful banana DNA extraction!
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This simple, yet interesting experience helped us attract children to our stand. It was a great starting point
for us we managed to start some indepth conversation with them about what they knew of DNA and what could be done with it.
Some of them weren't aware that banana had DNA at all and some teacher told us that our demonstration was very well though up and
easy to understand without distorting the truth.
We were the first most visited stand in the expo (thanks to the pungent smell of smashed banana) and
our intervention has even been broadcasted on a local TV (TLT[1]).
our success had us selected to take part to the International ExpoSciences in Brussel!.
Communication in junior high school
To carry on our education vibe, we met with the science teacher from the Leonard de Vinci junior high school of Tournefeuille to meet with the students. The plan? Bees, Varroas, an introduction to synthetic biology and, of course, the banana DNA extraction!
Teatching about varroas and bees
We prepared a short presentation on varroa and organised a question and answer with the pupils about the disappearance of bees,
pesticides, chemical treatments and varroa. The presentation was followed by a Q and A session where student were able to interact with us and
each other about varroa and synthetic biology. With the help of the teacher we were able to explain the basics of synthetic biology, the idea of biobricks
and spark a quick debate on GMO use. Most of the children were not antagonized by the use of a modified bacterium as long as it were confined in our Trapicoli,
but we felt that the biological knowledge needed to fully understand synthetic biology was a little foreign for them, so we switched our lecture to be
more about bees and the colony collapse disorder.
An unexpected advice
During the Q and A, we were asked about our studies and what kind of diploma we had. Question led to another
and without realising we where already doing a full guidance lecture about the choices these children will have to do in the following years (which school to
attend too and why, why should I study science? etc...). The point of view from students who had to go through those choices not so long ago helped them
gain assurance and ease their fear about their future studies.
We hope that we helped create a few scientific vocations during this talks (or maybe a future iGEMer!)
The main aim of this intervention was to teach children about varroa and synthetic biology while creating interest for science in general. But for us it taught us how to adapt our speech too younger audience, we had to stop taking for granted notions such as genes and even DNA. The experience we acquired here was them reused and we became able to switch from a full science explanation to a simpler overview of our project without getting boring.
Giant Jamboree training: International Exposciences in Brussels
The team had the wonderful opportunity to take part the International ExpoSciences in Brussels,
during this science fair we had the chance to meet people from all around the world to exchange
knowledge and ideas. In the middle our summer our project had matured a lot and the expo was
the occasion for us to test it in the real world exchanging with scientist.
We also spent our time explaining the iGEM competition to visitors and participant alike
bringing light unto the synthetic biology field, still quite unknown.
We also took the opportunity of being in belgium and organised a quick meetup with KU Leuven iGEM team.
This communication is fully integrated into the Apicoli project enhancing its exposure and credibility toward people.
Besides this experience enabled us to meet his Excellency mister Bernard Valero,
the ambassador of France in Belgium, and mister Jean-Claude Guiraudon, CIRASTI President and MILSET Honorary President, both of them
wished us luck on our endeavours.
Overall this experience in Brussels was quite intense, we met so many people interested in science and it was refreshing to be able to get out the lab and develop our project on the field. We hope to feel the same engagement this September in Boston.
Looking forward
With august looming over us, we had trouble organizing any education event. But iGEM does not stop the 28th of september, we have everything planned to keep our project alive outside of the competition:
- Peel and smash half of the Banana into a pulp
- Add the 50ml of water(must be at ambient temperature), the salt and the Dishwashing soap
- Stir until a soft foam starts to appear
- Let the mix pour through the coffee filter (about five minutes)
- Throw out the coffee filter and its content, keep the liquid
- Take a 2ml sample and pour it in the test tube
- Add 4ml of alcohol, two layer should form in the test tube
- In the alcohol layer, a white cloud with bubbles should appear, this cloud is DNA!
