More/WhyHSTrack

Why combine the Collegiate and High School competitions into one Jamboree?

We are excited to announce that in 2015 we are merging the high school and collegiate divisions. Instead of two separate competitions we are combining these two events with the addition of the ‘High School’ track in the 2015 iGEM competition. The High School track will become a part of the 2015 iGEM competition and Giant Jamboree event. As such, all high school teams will register and compete with similar deadlines, requirements & fees as the collegiate teams. All teams will then be invited to the 2015 Giant Jamboree in September to compete within their track.

• How will High School teams be judged? High school teams will be judged and evaluated against others in their track only (ie. high school teams will not be judged against collegiate teams).




• Will there be Tracks within the High School track? iGEM is encouraging all high school participants to follow their passion and work on projects that inspire them. Unlike previous years, the high school teams will not be competing within focus research areas (ie, health and medicine, environment, etc). High school teams may work on any research area of their choosing with evaluations and judging across all projects and fields.




• Why did we make this change? iGEM is proud to support High School students in the iGEM competition. However, it became increasingly difficult, with our limited resources, to run and coordinating two separate programs, the collegiate division and High School division, with their two distinct timelines. We felt that to best support the iGEM program we needed to concentrate our efforts on one Jamboree a year.

  At the 2014 High School Jamboree, there was discussion of a potential hiatus for the high school program until more resources became available. This hiatus was met with strong objection from our community. We are pleased to announce that instead of a hiatus, the high school teams will be merged into the main competition and participate as a track in the collegiate program. Once again, we could not have made this change without explicit support from our high school community.

  We’re optimistic that this will make iGEM High School stronger and will also create greater synergy between the high school and collegiate teams. Forming relationships between colleges and high schools can lead to an exchange of ideas and resource as well as mentorship or guidance from professors or collegiate teams. By giving high school students access to the collegiate division competition we hope to inspire future studies in synthetic biology.

  
  

• Fees and other considerations? The high school team registration fee will be the same as for all participants (high school and collegiate) Attendance fee will be decided as the 2015 Giant Jamboree competition schedule is finalized.