We had the opportunity to collaborate with the Könitz School , near Bern in Switzerland, to integrate Synthetic Biology into their Summer School program on the 5th of July at our laboratory at EPFL. This one-week summer school allows about twenty students to discover our campus, the facilities and laboratories as well as the research conducted. Within this framework, we offered them a workshop on Synthetic Biology, consisting of a presentation explaining field, the iGEM competition as well as our project CAPOEIRA. Then we guided them towards a basic experimental practice of synthetic biology based on an Educational Kit designed by last year’s EPFL iGEM Team.

This first presentation allowed us to target the pedagogical elements to be highlighted in our presentation to capture attention as well as the key technical points that require more precision for the audience's understanding. We also took note of areas where we could improve our presentation skills with regards to the oral fluency, rhythm of speech and clarity of explanations for example. We got to present in front of an audience for the first time, which highlighted our strengths and areas of improvement in presentation skills!