As part of our Education and Communication efforts, we produced a How-To Guide for Australian high school iGEM teams, a synthetic biology poster for education within a school environment, and developed a form for primary stakeholders to evaluate the guide and poster’s usefulness and impact. Our target audience included Australian high school students - to pique their interest in iGEM and provide further guidance in their iGEM endeavours - as well as Australian high school teachers - to raise awareness about the machinations and logistics of iGEM, and propose a plan to be taken by a teacher considering running a high school iGEM team. However, we found, through a discussion with the mentioned stakeholders, that our guide could also transcend these parameters. Whilst it provides immense benefits for uniquely Australian or high school teams, high schools across the globe, as well as Australian teams that may fall under the university category, could use the majority of the guide as a detailed insight into iGEM just as effectively.
As mentioned, these resources were founded upon a single premise; our own experiences as Australia’s first high school iGEM team. As relatively inexperienced individuals in the field of iGEM, and only guided by advisors that had experience with university-level teams, we were exposed to various logistical issues, including time zone differences, additional costs, difficulties in finding local collaborations and the lack of holiday periods to work on our project’s development (due to differences in when school holidays occur between the Northern and Southern hemispheres). As such, we based our Education and Communication resources around such difficulties, and rather than ignoring the concerns and issues we faced, we chose to adapt them into a written medium that can serve as advice, education and awareness for the adversity unique to Australian high schools and synthetic biology in Australia. In addition, the guide contains detailed information surrounding the general premise of iGEM, and provides baseline information for teams to utilise to their advantage.
The How-To Guide is comprised of the following sections:
This section defines synthetic biology, and uncovers its various applications and benefits in specific fields. This is then linked to iGEM, and a summary of our team’s endeavours.
This section, being the most detailed of the guide, properly introduces iGEM, and explores the processes, benefits, specifics and factors that Australian high school iGEM teams must consider through an analysis of TheKingsSchool_AU_HS’s experiences as the first Australian high school to enter iGEM.
This section is more targeted at our next main stakeholder besides students, namely teachers, and offers insight into the requirements that iGEM PI’s and advisors must meet in aiding a potential future Australian high school iGEM team.
This section of the guide details the most important aspect of synthetic biology - the practical component - with respect to the labs and equipment required for proper experimentation, as well as the ever-vital facet of safety in the lab.
This How-To Guide, aimed at future and upcoming Australian high school iGEM teams, evidently targets both students and teachers that formed the members and PI’s/ advisors of iGEM teams, and through an analysis of feedback from both teachers and students, we have gained further insight into just how beneficial our guide was, and will continue to be. Furthermore, as part of the student package, we designed a classroom poster about Synthetic Biology.
We sent the How-To Guide to high school science teachers in New South Wales (our state), and we have had a positive response to our resources.
We observed an increase in the understanding of iGEM after reading our How-to Guide when compared to their knowledge prior to reading our guide. Similarly, understanding of the factors and considerations of iGEM also increased across respondents. Furthermore, respondents said they were likely to suggest the iGEM competitions to other teachers after reading our guide (average: 4.3/5 for likelihood of recommendation) — a great support to our aim of expanding the knowledge and participation of high schools in Australia within the greater field of synthetic biology. All respondents also replied that they would put up our synthetic biology poster up in their classroom space.
As you can see, a general increase in the level of understanding of iGEM, the facets of the competition and synthetic biology on the whole was gained from reading our How-To Guide and synthetic biology poster.
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