Team:William and Mary/Public Engagement
Community Engagement Events
This year, we established sustainable, impactful community engagement programs which provide inclusive STEM learning opportunities for ages K-16 and beyond. These events were inspired and informed by connections we made through integrated human practices. Our goal was to (1) increase interest in STEM by providing hands on learning experiences and (2) engaging new, traditionally underserved communities. An additional and equally important goal was to develop a framework for sustainability for each of these events and ensure continuing interactions with the communities we served.
This year, for the first time, we participated in STEM Community Day. This annual event is hosted by Newport News Public Schools on Christopher Newport University campus. STEM Community Day reaches hundreds of students of all ages from diverse backgrounds, and brings them and their families together for a day of hands-on STEM learning. We were eager to seize this opportunity to work in a new community, interact with new audiences, and make connections with other STEM organizations through this event. We connected with Ashely Young, a microbiology teacher at Menchville High School, and are planning to expand our high school program to her classes. She is also interested in learning more about iGEM and opportunities for high school teams. We plan to include her classes in our high school outreach program this fall.
During the event, we hosted a booth which presented a poster introducing iGEM and synthetic biology, and led attendees in extracting DNA from fruit, and making edible DNA models. Students ages 6 to 16, and a few interested adults, were able to participate in our activities, and all of them learned something new about biology. These activities are perfect for all ages because the complexity of instruction can be adapted to all levels of knowledge. Younger participants who have yet to learn about DNA were able to to learn that DNA is a “blueprint” for our cells. They were then instructed to design an edible DNA model. Older students participated in both activities and were able to discuss the function of DNA in greater depth, and even discuss how we would engineer genetic material for use in synthetic biology. We were also able to interact with parents at this event and introduce them to synthetic biology through our poster.
Parents and adult attendees asked for flyers or pamphlets which discuss synthetic biology and opportunities to learn more about synthetic biology or become involved in similar outreach programs. With this feedback in mind, we hope to increase our outreach to adults in the future. Participating in STEM Community Day allowed us to impact new communities and provides an opportunity to sustain our engagement with this community. This program has been established for six years and we now established the contacts to continue our involvement with the event to expand our impact.
Each summer the Center for Gifted Education at the William & Mary School of Education provides educational opportunities for high level students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Through these programs, students are able to explore advanced topics not typically studied in the classroom. Our involvement in two programs, Focusing on the Future and Camp Launch, aims to expose students to careers in STEM and provide them with an experience in the lab. We worked with approximately 60 middle school students in classes which are specifically designed for students interested in pursuing science related careers.
We have been involved in the Camp Launch program and Focusing on the Future event for a few years, and we are committed to continuing our connection with these programs. This year, we adapted the two pronged approach presented last year which engaged students in a presentation, then continued their learning with a day in the lab. We worked with approximately 60 students through our involvement with goth programs.
The goal of our presentation for the Focusing on the Future event was to introduce students to synthetic biology, discuss the unique design, build, test process of our research, and expose students to a variety of careers in STEM. Later on in the week, students were able to apply the knowledge presented during Focusing on the Future by experiencing a day in our lab. Students conducted gel electrophoresis and plated bacteria containing red fluorescent protein, while also learning about lab safety and common laboratory techniques. The protocols for the events and both activities can be found here.
This program impacts the students by exposing them to advanced topics not typically studied in the classroom and careers that involve these topics. Students are shown that these careers are achievable for them while working in the lab and experiencing life as a scientist.
This year, we continued our involvement in two William & Mary programs, PLUS and PLUS-S. PLUS stands for Preparing for Life as a University Student while PLUS-S is targeted to students interested in studying science. Both programs introduce matriculating freshman from minority backgrounds to campus life.
We presented to PLUS students at their Navigating William & Mary event. We introduced students to iGEM and what we do as a team, and discussed ways to get involved with research and science opportunities on campus. Some students inquired about becoming a part of the iGEM team after the presentation. We are excited to see new undergraduate students already interested in participating in iGEM.
From July 15-19 we participated in the PLUS-S program as teaching assistants and mentors, and hosted 3 students in our lab for daily lab experience. Our involvement as teaching assistants added a valuable current student perspective to the program and allowed us to closely mentor the students. We hosted the students for 2-3 hours in the lab and taught them basic lab tasks including performing a mini-prep and a PCR reaction. This was a great opportunity to show students the variety of science opportunities offered on our campus and introduce them to life in a synthetic biology lab.
Participating in the PLUS programs aligns with our goals to increase the visibility of iGEM and undergraduate research on our campus, while also giving us the opportunity to expose a diverse audience to synthetic biology. We will continue our involvement with this annual William & Mary program and aim to become more involved as mentors to the students.
This year we hosted our second annual Ladies in the Lab event. This event encourages young women to become more involved in STEM by inviting young lady scientists, and a few gentlemen, into our lab for a full day of hands on experiments. Ladies in the Lab was a successful event last year, but we aimed to grow the event by expanding the age range and reaching out to more groups.
We originally planned the age range to encompass ages 9-12, but many parents requested to include younger and older students. The final age group encompassed ages 9-13, so we split them into two groups, 8-10 and 11-13, and adapted the activities to different levels of learning. This year we reached out to the Williamsburg Classical Academy, Williamsburg Girl Scouts, our local public schools, and increased our outreach through social media. The Williamsburg community is very active on Facebook, and we were able to reach many new audiences through the variety of family pages advertised to Williamsburg families. Due to this outreach, attendance grew form 28 ladies and 2 gentlemen to 55 ladies and 5 gentlemen! To help our event run smoothly, we involved William & Mary students from other STEM organizations as volunteers for the event.
The young scientists participated in a full day of activities including DNA extractions from fruit and skin cells, paper chromatography, gel electrophoresis, RFP plating, and dessert cells. The DNA extractions, food coloring gel electrophoresis, and RFP art were adapted from our activity booklets can be found here. The schedule and activity protocols can be found here.
We maintained our strong relationship with local high schools by continuing to bring biology classes into our labs to experience higher level experiments not typically offered in classrooms. This spring, we collaborated with the 2018 team to host classes from Jamestown High School. Students participated in a full day of lab activities including phage discovery.
In November we will continue our fall high school visits which is when students will have been introduced to topics in genetics. We will implement our newly developed SOL curriculum through our high school outreach by sharing the curriculum with teachers we have strong relationships with and including the lesson plans in our programs. Based on teacher and student feedback from the Community Day, we will expand our high school outreach program through our connections with schools in the Newport News region.
Reaching out to the community also includes the academic community. We attended the Inaugural Mid-Atlantic Synthetic Biology Symposium. Attending this event gave us the opportunity to keep up with current research and network with researchers are educator. At the symposium we presented posters of two of our past iGEM projects and a new outreach poster. This outreach poster gave us the opportunity to discuss outreach in a community where public engagement is often overlooked. Presenting our outreach poster generated many conversations about the lack of outreach and education efforts being presented in the synthetic biology field.
We performed a qualitative assessment for these events, requesting written and oral feedback from participants, particularly from the parents/guardians for the events involving younger students. For the events not organized by the W&M iGEM team, we also requested feedback from the organizers of the events. In every instance, feedback was overwhelmingly positive. In terms of constructive suggestions, we consistently received the following: expand the age groups of participants and host events more freqeuntly. In terms of results, we have now established longer-term connections that will allow sustainability and participation in future events.