Team:William and Mary/Overview
Overview
The emerging field of synthetic biology is now impacting every aspect of society. It is imperative that we improve our outreach to educate the public of all ages on synthetic biology and its potential to impact the world. This engagement and education must be available and accessible to everyone to promote inclusivity and diversity in STEM fields. Improving this outreach must involve collaboration and consultation between experts in the field, educators, and the public. This year, our outreach project focused on consulting experts to inform all aspects of our project, establishing impactful community engagement, and creating open source materials to promote education in synthetic biology.
We have divided our outreach into three categories: Integrated Human Practices, Community Engagement, and Education. More detailed information for each of these sections can be found on their respective pages of the wiki.
Education
Goal
- Promote open source education in synthetic biology by creating comprehensive materials and distributing them through accessible platforms
Achievements
- Created a curriculum to accompany the new section on synthetic biology in the updated state standards of learning
- Wrote supplemental synthetic biology material for each of the chapter of the leading OpenStax introductory textbook
- Developed materials that integrate data science and synthetic biology hosted by QUBES
- Developed software tools based on web scraping and machine learning that update a database of iGEM outreach projects in an automated manner
Integrated Human Practices
Goal
- Engage in constructive, bidirectional conversations with community members and experts for the wet lab project and the outreach and education component
Achievements
- Consulted a medical doctor, expert in biofilms, and the public
- Interacted with dozens of educators at the high school and undergraduate level to review and inform our education materials
- These interactions guided and modified our project directions
Community Engagement
Goal
- Establish sustainable, impactful community engagement programs which provide inclusive STEM learning opportunities for ages K-16 and beyond
Achievements
- Completed six successful engagement events
- Interacted with hundreds of students ages K-16 and beyond
- Reached out to communities new communities beyond Williamsburg
- Sustained connections with organizations and community members by continuing our involvement in key events