In the early months of our iGEM project, Tenna from our team was recognized by her old science teacher from her elementary school from seven years ago. He was delighted that one of his students had been inspired by his teachings and had chosen a career in science. They agreed that back then, the chances of being inspired and learn about different branches of science, such as biology, had been lacking.

It was between the two of them that our project, ‘Priming the Next Generation’, began.

As a part of our community engagement, we embarked on this journey of presenting the many possibilities in biotechnology and its intriguing applications to make the world a better place to ninth graders in elementary school.

Lina, Tenna, and Jacob began the venture with three classes, a total of 60 students, who were all very eager to learn the advantages and capabilities that biotechnology holds in transforming our everyday life. After a short introduction to iGEM and our project, we spent some time learning and talking about subjects such as: Medical microbiology, bioinformatics, astrobiology, and synthetic biology. We wanted to illuminate the wide variety of subjects of biotechnology. and remove the stigma that biotechnology is “only bacteria and yeast”.

We proceeded to teach the students about existing projects, among these were some old iGEM projects from DTU, and what their possibilities with regards to education and careers in Denmark are. After the introduction of what you could do with synthetic biology, a discussion began between the students with what a possible project could be. No ideas were too “out there” and Tenna, Lina, and Jacob tried to develop on the ideas and illuminate the feasible aspects of them.

Of course, it should not be too heavy for the fleeting minds of 9th graders, so we not only made sure to keep it interactive, with questions for the audience, but we also held a fun Kahoot quiz where the students’ listening skills were put to the test. To keep them on their toes a question about Fortnite and Shawn Mendes was thrown into the mix.

The students were thrilled and the teachers all agreed that they would like this to be an annual event with the future DTU iGEM teams.

After the success at the first school, interest grew among other schools. After a short period we were in contact with Lina’s old school, Sankt Annæ song-school as well as the private school Skt. Knud Lavard, near DTU.

It was great to see that it was not only the teachers we had inspired but also a lot of the students since some since then, have decided to learn more about synthetic biology and its role in society. Inspired, a group of three boys from Sankt Annæ approached Tenna and Lina for help answering questions for their final project in ninth grade where they had decided to work on the ethical aspects of GMO.

At the end of the iGEM-project, we had visited three schools and had plans to visit one more school.

It was an overall great learning experience for us and we were all extremely pleased having had the possibility of establishing this project. Being at university-level, it can be hard to remember what is interesting to elementary schoolers. Many of the pupils surprised us with great ideas and pre-knowledge of biotechnology and it was a great learning experience in compiling an appropriate presentation for your audience.