Communication

Splash!. . Splash! Cornell was a program that allowed high school students from all over to attend lectures on anything that interested them. For one day, students could attend lectures on topics such as: Japanese, making stuffed animals, solving muder mysteries, etc. Our program focused on women in synthetic biology, with a focus on women from Cornell that are in the field. With aid and funding from the President’s Council of Cornell Women at Cornell University, we were able to make this female led event a possibility. Additionally, our team plans to complete a second outreach event with Splash! Cornell this November to improve our performance from the spring and apply the feedback we received from our initial presentation. Prior to participating in the program, we completed working with minors training through Cornell’s CU Learn platform. . Sciencenter. . The sciencenter is a phenomenal resource in Ithaca that gives children and adults alike the opportunity to explore a variety of scientific concepts in an interactive way. As a part of their outreach, the sciencenter hosts science connections events on the weekend, where outside groups can come to share their knowledge on various topics. We were grateful to be able to present at a science connections event this summer. Our program had three tables: one describing synthetic biology, one describing how art and science connect, and one about our project MicroMurals. All photos taken during the activity were taken with the subject’s consent. . Longview Senior Living Community. . Longview Senior Living Community is a residential senior living center in Ithaca dedicated to the well-being of older adults. As part of the residential life, the center often hosts different kinds of programming for the residents to take part in. Cornell iGEM went to Longview as one such event. The event that Cornell iGEM hosted was a presentation to the residents about what bioart was and different case studies of possibly unethical bioart practices and projects. Then, the presentation was followed by a bioart ethics debate amongst the residents structured around a series of questions we prepared ahead of time. In general, we feel as though the event was a success as it gave the residents the opportunity to learn about something new and engage in the material in a unique way while also giving us new insight about how the older generation may feel about our project. . BBBS Match Event. . Our collaboration with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Ithaca and University of Rochester was an exceptional chance to engage with both the Ithaca community and other iGEM teams! During our event, BBBS matches came to the Ithaca Youth Bureau to complete activities centered around the inner workings of synthetic biology and bioart. With a total of four stations, matches had a variety of options for ways to learn more about science. The positive feedback from the sciencenter outreach event resulted in our team choosing to continue using the same general set of activities: one station explaining synthetic biology with legos, one station using paint to explain the scientific process, and one station using oobleck to model hydrogels. All photos taken during the activity were taken with the subject’s consent. . Social Media. . As a part of our outreach, we continued posting on various Cornell iGEM social media accounts, including instagram and tiktok. We used these platforms as a method to showcase exceptional interview quotes, infographics on topics like “what is synthetic biology”, and fundraise. These accounts also served as a methodology of connecting with other iGEM teams, as we could message them through these sites and keep up to date on what other teams are focusing on. .

Outreach


2022
Splash!
Splash!
Splash! Cornell was a program that allowed high school students from all over to attend lectures on anything that interested them. For one day, students could attend lectures on topics such as: Japanese, making stuffed animals, solving muder mysteries, etc. Our program focused on women in synthetic biology, with a focus on women from Cornell that are in the field. With aid and funding from the President’s Council of Cornell Women at Cornell University, we were able to make this female led event a possibility. Additionally, our team plans to complete a second outreach event with Splash! Cornell this November to improve our performance from the spring and apply the feedback we received from our initial presentation. Prior to participating in the program, we completed working with minors training through Cornell’s CU Learn platform.
Sciencenter
2022
Sciencenter
The sciencenter is a phenomenal resource in Ithaca that gives children and adults alike the opportunity to explore a variety of scientific concepts in an interactive way. As a part of their outreach, the sciencenter hosts science connections events on the weekend, where outside groups can come to share their knowledge on various topics. We were grateful to be able to present at a science connections event this summer. Our program had three tables: one describing synthetic biology, one describing how art and science connect, and one about our project MicroMurals. All photos taken during the activity were taken with the subject’s consent.
2022
Longview Senior Living Community Event
Longview Senior Living Community Event
Longview Senior Living Community is a residential senior living center in Ithaca dedicated to the well-being of older adults. As part of the residential life, the center often hosts different kinds of programming for the residents to take part in. Coornell iGEM went to Longview as one such event. The event that Cornell iGEM hosted was a presentation to the residents about what bioart was and different case studies of possibly unethical bioart practices and projects. Then, the presentation was followed by a bioart ethics debate amongst the residents structured around a series of questions we prepared ahead of time. In general, we feel as though the event was a success as it gave the residents the opportunity to learn about something new and engage in the material in a unique way while also giving us new insight about how the older generation may feel about our project.
BBBS Match Event
2022
BBBS Match Event
Our collaboration with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Ithaca and University of Rochester was an exceptional chance to engage with both the Ithaca community and other iGEM teams! During our event, BBBS matches came to the Ithaca Youth Bureau to complete activities centered around the inner workings of synthetic biology and bioart. With a total of four stations, matches had a variety of options for ways to learn more about science. The positive feedback from the sciencenter outreach event resulted in our team choosing to continue using the same general set of activities: one station explaining synthetic biology with legos, one station using paint to explain the scientific process, and one station using oobleck to model hydrogels. All photos taken during the activity were taken with the subject’s consent.
2022
Social Media
Social Media
As a part of our outreach, we continued posting on various Cornell iGEM social media accounts, including instagram and tiktok. We used these platforms as a method to showcase exceptional interview quotes, infographics on topics like “what is synthetic biology”, and fundraise. These accounts also served as a methodology of connecting with other iGEM teams, as we could message them through these sites and keep up to date on what other teams are focusing on.

Learn More



Splash!
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We aimed to make our program fun and engaging for students, so we wanted to create materials that would be informative while also having a hands-on component.
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Our target audience was high schoolers. The audience was able to hear our presentation on leading women of synthetic biology and then have a hands on activity afterwards. We wanted activities to be fun and easy, so they ranged from coloring sheets to making slime.
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Our presentation was structured so that after each woman in science was presented, we had a chance to do the activity with iGEM members walking around the room fielding questions. Although the initial focus of this format was to give students as safe space to ask questions, it offered an ideal time to build rapport with the students and maintain open dialogue about their thoughts and feelings towards the workshop.
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We provided all materials for the workshops so students of any background could participate. Students could opt into activities, and there was no pressure to complete them so if something felt overstimulating for a student they had the space to say no.
Sciencenter
Check out our lesson plan here.
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The age group that attends sciencenter events is very young, as we learned last year when we did a presentation on collatrix. Therefore, following the advice given in last year’s surveys, we aimed our activities to be appropriate for children ages 3-8. So, all the materials used for this event were washable and non-toxic to ensure participant safety.
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Our target audience was toddlers and elementary school children. Thus, all our explanations were given as the children did hands-on activities to keep their attention. The explanations for all three tables were given in child appropriate language. Participants got to touch, move, and color, and even some parents got involved in the activities. Our three activities were: a building with biology kit (with wooden blocks to model building a cell), bouncy ball scientific process activity (where kids put paint, paper, and bouncy balls in a box and tried to predict what would happen), and oobleck (which they could color on and mess with similar to slime).
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The materials we chose were safe to touch, so participants were able to explore the activities without any hazard. By giving the children something to touch and move while we talked, we aimed to engage multiple senses so that students could absorb the new information while also seeing it play out in front of them. The children that partook in our event were taught entirely by iGEM members, so they got a chance to discuss and talk directly to the team. Additionally, parents often went through the activities with the kids, so they were able to ask more complex questions and explain back concepts that were more difficult to their kids.
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All materials were provided by the team, so participants had equal access to materials. Furthermore, the language was scaled to be understandable by children of any age so that parents and children alike could learn from the event. Since the event was set up as three separate tables, families could walk up to any table that interested them and were not required to go to every table if a certain topic was uninteresting to them.


Longview
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Since we knew that the demographic that we were targeting with this event would be an older demographic, we knew that they would have a different specific on the ethical issues surrounding synthetic biology and bioart than we would have. We thought having this diversity of thought between different age groups was important, which is why we decided to produce or create a bioart ethics debate as it encouraged an open discussion across generations about the controversial ethical implications of the bioart field.
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The age group for Longview was senior citizens who were typically over the age of 70. Many members of our group were either hard of hearing or visually impaired, so we made sure to make the presentation as accessible as possible by adding more writing to the slide so that residents could read in case they didn’t hear everything that we said. In addition, we made the font very large so that people that were trying to read, were able to read easily. We also made sure to present while using microphones to be as loud as possible. Since the material we produced was mostly just a presentation, the audience could use it.
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The whole purpose of this outreach activity was to encourage open dialogue with the audience as by nature a debate on the ethics of bioart would involve a lot of audience participation. We helped to facilitate this discussion by presenting the residents with a series of case studies and providing them with the pros and cons of each scenario in order to help them get started. We also had a series of questions and probes around which the debate was structured so that there was a sense of organization. In general, after speaking with the residents after the debate, they enjoyed the event because it allowed them to learn about something new and exercise their brain as they thought about the different sides of each controversial case.
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The retirement center staff worked with iGEM team members ahead of time to establish publicity for the event which made sure that a majority of the residents were aware of the event ahead of time. There was no pressure to be involved in the event and residents were allowed to come and go as they pleased. There was also no pressure for residents to actually speak up during the debate if they did not feel comfortable doing so. As mentioned earlier, the material was made easily accessible for the older residents by having detailed writing on the slides for them to read if needed and having a larger font so it was more visible. Microphones were used to present. One piece of feedback was that we should hand the microphone out to audience members while they speak in the debate so that they are easily heard as well. We are in the process of organizing future events with other retirement centers like Kendal @ Ithaca, so we will keep this in mind.
BBBS Match Event
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As previously stated, this outreach event was run almost identically to the sciencenter event thanks to the highly positive feedback received from Ali Jackon (one of our stakeholders). Thus, all materials were non toxic and washable for participant safety. The age group for the BBBS match event was slightly older, with participants ranging form the ages of 8-45 years old. Thus, we were able to use legos (as all children were being supervised and were old enough to be trusted with smaller pieces).
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Our target audience was BBBS matches, which means children ranging from the ages of about 8-16 years old and bigs of any age! We wanted the materials to be interactive and hands-on, to encourage the participants to engage with the science using more than one sense. Explanations were kept simple so both the littles and the bigs would be able to understand the content. Since the ages of littles varied, the language used to explain the project was scaled to meet the needs of the little. Participants got to touch, move, and color, and even some bigs got involved in the activities. Our three activities were: synthetic biology legos (where legos were used to model a synthetically designed cell), bouncy ball scientific process activity (where kids put paint, paper, and bouncy balls in a box and tried to predict what would happen), and oobleck (which they could color on and mess with similar to slime).
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Our materials gave participants a way to engage with the content regardless of their understanding of the complexities of synthetic biology. The matches could engage safely with the materials and witness concepts play out in front of them. Littles asked questions about the activities and discussed their opinions on what type of superpowers their bacteria would have or what color they think their oobleck will be when red and purple are combined. Some of the bigs were PhD candidates in engineering and biology, so those matches got more in-depth, technical explanations of the work to match their understanding of synthetic biology. All activities were taught by iGEM members, allowing everyone to interact with and learn about the work iGEM teams complete.
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Identical to the sciencenter event, all materials were provided by the team so participants had equal access to materials. Furthermore, the language was scaled to be understandable by children of any age so that bigs and littles alike could learn from the event. Since the event was set up at separate tables, matches could walk up to any table that interested them and were not required to go to every table if a certain topic was uninteresting to them.
BioArt Communication and Outreach
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As a part of our endeavor to showcase our team’s amazing work and continue to educate the community on the power of bioart, our team created a bioart exhibit in buildings around the Cornell campus. The main exhibit space is PSB, the physical science building where students take chemistry, physics, and labs classes. After meeting with building coordinators, we picked a high traffic space for our presentation to maximize the number of viewers. Adam Shulman, a Cornell AAP student and one of our stakeholders, was pivotal in designing the exhibit. With Adam’ assistance, our team designed a presentation that spans two tables. Both tables will be covered in paper with tiny squares printed onto it. One the main parts of the table, there will be large squares for showcasing technical pieces from the project (including things such as a bioreactor impellor). The large squares will be surrounded by the tiny squares, which are meant for people to draw tiny art pieces in. The art pieces can be scanned into our team’s app, and then 3D printed! The bioart exhibit offers an exceptional chance for us to integrate the input of our stakeholders, the technical work of the team, and the educational focus for the project in one event.
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Our team sought to bring bioart to as many people as possible. While certain constraints prevented Cornell iGEM from creating a bioart lab this season, we created a guide on how other teams and schools would be able to get their own bioart lab started!

Our goal is to show how science and art can be integrated as one interdisciplinary field of bioart. Given that our university places a high value on “any person, any study”, we knew this would align with Cornell’s values. However, there was no major bioart initiative on our campus. After speaking with bioartist Suzanne Anker and hearing about her lab and labs being started at the University of Buffalo and SVA, we decided that introducing a bioart lab at Cornell was necessary. We began by reaching out to the College of Engineering and the Cornell Project Team's admin, Lauren Stulgis, to understand the process of starting a lab at Cornell. The first step was looking at faculty that would be interested in bioart. Since we wanted the focus to be on both art and science, we hope to have two PIs for a joint lab or a main PI who is in the sciences in charge of safety and training and have an art professor serve as an advisor. We referenced professors like Dr. Tamer Uyar, who specializes in fiber and polymer science, and artists like Oasa DuVerney, who has a special interest in interdisciplinary art. However, faculty at Cornell have obligations of their own, meaning we would need new faculty. The next step in this process was looking at different lab spaces. Since we wanted to emphasize that this is still scientific research, we wanted lab space in a science building. We looked at Weill, the bioengineering department; Olin Hall, the chemical engineering department; and Baker Laboratory, the chemistry department. Unfortunately, there is no additional space available. We also looked at one of the future buildings, Atkinson’s Hall, which is a building that is focused on interdisciplinary work on campus. However, this building is under construction and isn’t ready for us. This was one of the biggest setbacks in our efforts to create the bioart lab. Next was funding. To start a lab, considering that this lab would still fall under scientific research, we looked at traditional grants, like those from the NIH and the Department of Health and Human Services. For bioart specifically, we looked at individual grants like the Creative Capital Wild Futures grant. We also looked at the National Endowment for the Arts Research Labs grant as it focuses on transdisciplinary research between art and non-art fields. One of the biggest components of a bioart lab would be to have the technology and equipment for the bio artists to use. Bioartist Meghan Moe Beitiks suggested that we find a space that already has technology and lab equipment available. Then, we should find an artist who is interested in using that technology as their medium. That way, we have the resources ready and it helps reduce finances. This was one of the biggest motivations for why we wanted lab space in a science building. The last criteria that we looked into was the requirements for who would be joining our lab. The bioart lab would intend to support mainly artists and scientists, but also recruit people studying fashion, technology, psychology and more as this field is something that everyone should be aware of. Ultimately, it is out of our scope to start a bioart lab on our own. We are also considering promoting bioart on campus through introducing a class on campus or starting a club. Either way, bioart is something that we think is important to promote and relevant to our university’s mission, making it all the more important that we raise awareness about it around campus and beyond.
To learn more about starting a BioArt Lab, click here.


MicroMurals Mission

Since one of our project’s primary tools was to use microbial art to encourage interdisciplinary education in both the arts and the sciences, we thought that it would be helpful to create a video game to help students and other users understand the engineering process behind a MicroMural.

Screenshots from MicroMurals Mission Video Game
Check out our educational video game! (The web version currently only launches successfully on the Safari browser)