Team:BostonU/Education/Upward Bound

Upward Bound Nanotechnology

To further our dialogue with students, we engaged Boston area high schoolers in exactly what is synthetic biology. Initially we talked about synthetic biology and tried to engage them but it was difficult! What most got their attention were ethical questions about the applications of synthetic biology. A popular student suggested application of genome editing was a “flying dog”, but after discussion about what pros and cons this organism would bring it was decided that maybe this wasn’t the best application of synthetic biology. Instead we brought up synthesized meats and stem cell therapies for people who had lost limbs. These hypotheticals were very difficult for the students to parse out, and even though they did not necessarily come to a conclusion, the interest that it generated was more important. After that we gave them a hands on tour of the lab in which they were able to learn about restriction digestion and plating bacterial cells. 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!