PRIMARY SCHOOL

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Intervention Report

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Introduction

We intervened with 35 CM1 (9 years old) of primary school Belbèze in Toulouse. This course on microbes was a part of the theme “Civic education, morality and discovery of the world”. The purpose of our activities is to allow children to observe, investigate and discover the causes of natural phenomena. For this, we followed a questioning approach on the role of the researcher and the hygiene measures that he must follow.

At first, we introduced ourself, then we introduced iGEM to the students. We separated the students into three groups.

Group 1 : Researcher and hygiene measurement

Equipment :

We brought Petri dishes, plastic beakers, a pear, a graduated pipette, a sterile bulb, gloves, a gown, safety glasses, Eppendorf tubes of different sizes, pee pots, falcons, containers to weigh, displays and distilled water.

Summary :

The research profession was presented through personal considerations from the children who were asked to think about a definition of research as well as the material for studying “microbes”.

An important aspect was to focus on safety with presentation of the individual protections (glasses, gloves and gown).

To finish, the students laid their hands before and after washing on a petri dish containing LB + agar in order to observe the importance of the hand wash.

The vast majority of students showed curiosity and asked many questions.

Group 2 : Microbioworld

The discovery of the microbial world was also made through the card game “Microbioworld”. In teams of 2 to 4, the students played one of the 6 strains of the game. Although some rules and some concepts were not understood from the beginning, the students quickly took to the game. At the end of the game different notions have been discussed: the differences between the culture media, different resistance of microorganisms and plasmids, different characteristics of microorganisms (pathogenic or not, gram positive or negative). These notions have sometimes been simplified for the sake of clarity for this young audience.

Group 3: “Microbes: Bacteria and virus”

This part was more like a course in the true sense of the word. The question of microbes was raised by questions about pupils’ knowledge (what is a microbe, where can you find them, how does they look like).

To answer the questions raised in the first section, we viewed a video on the differences between viruses and bacteria

We corrected the previous questions from the video and we clarify the misunderstandings in groups. Then, we visualized photos on a tablet (diagram of theoretical form of bacteria and virus and photos of observations under the microscope).

Finally the students filled out a form where they invented their own microbe.

The students were very interested in this part although it was more conventional. Creating microbes allowed the development of the imagination of the students in the conditions of calm work.

Additional reflection

We started the intervention with all the 3 group in the same room. It was not a good idea and we quickly changed it!

We had 2 classes of CM1 in progress, both teachers remained throughout the intervention to help us maintain good working conditions.

Overall agitation was more prevalent in groups 1 and 2 because the activity was more playful. The intervention took place from 9h30 to 12h, the break could not be done on the official schedules for the group 1.

"SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF LABORATORY" HIGHSCHOOL

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Mounting of a collaboration between iGEM Toulouse and the Network of French High Schools

Very early during our project, we met Cathy Metge and Aurélien Despierris at an Escape Game convention. They are teachers in STL high school, a specialized formation focused on Science and Technology in Laboratory. Like us, they were here to find new educational ways to transmit their passion of sciences. On their advices, we met Philippe Garnier, an academic inspector, and we soon agreed that we have common ambitions to create fun ways to study biotechnology. We were therefore very interested in working together. Indeed, many problematics of the STL program were parts of our project for the iGEM competition, like :

• Control of the identity of a bacterial strain of interest
• Development of a culture medium
• Search for optimal conditions for growth and production.
• Growth monitoring
• Extraction of products from the culture medium
• Qualitative / quantitative analysis
• Molecular biology: notions of cloning / extraction of DNA-RNA / restriction enzymes / PCR …
• Lab safety and bioethics issues.

They were also very interested in our student trajectories and experiences. The way we handled our Human practices part was also raising their interest. This is how we decided to start a collaboration with the network of French high schools. He indicated us that this could influence not only the STL sections but also the following BTS (higher technician formation) and preparatory classes to higher education institutions :

• BTS ABM
• BTS Biotech
• BTS QIAB
• BTS Bioanalysis and Control
• Prepa ATS Bio
• Prepa (CPGE) TB

Actions

Face-to-face exchanges

We first organized a meeting with not one but many high schools. In order to do that, we have scheduled a Visio conference with the help of Aurélien Despierris for after the Giant Jamboree. This will gather four high schools (Stéphane Hessel High school and high schools from Castres, Montauban and Albi (3 cities of our region). This intervention will be in two parts. The first one will be about iGEM, our project and all the problems that we have been challenged with. In the second part, we are going to talk about our scholar trajectories, how we deal with this project and being students but also about ethical aspects of synthetic biology.

Digital Media

Because our subject is something that these students can understand, we thought about giving them some of our documents, protocols and results in order to increase their awareness about lab work.

We thought about different ways to disseminate these resources. We could use the eduLab Biotech Toulouse website: the GREEN (or the academic biotechnology site currently under construction or via a dedicated mixed site IGEM Toulouse - biotech). Another possibility is through the national association of biotech teachers (UPBM), or the Eduscol ministerial site. We also give teachers the idea to use labspace.io as a manageable and interactive labbook. This website was really helpful for our team and it can surely be used in an educational way.



Equipment

As an educational tool, we have remastered the "Microbioworld" card game of our fellow iGEM Toulouse predecessors. So we decided to use it. Cathy Metge came with this beautiful idea of an educational case that can bring a lot of science resources for student such as orientation tips, help in biology, professional advices and our Microbioword game to raise interest in Microbiology. This is a really big project since it will concern all the French highschools, national scale. It will be diffused with the help of Philippe GARNIER and the French Educational Ministry.

Conclusion : A long term relationship

This collaboration will go beyond iGEM Toulouse 2018 and there is a strong motivation on both side to make it last.

“The possibility of building this partnership over time is particularly important to us. It will be easier to bring this action to the greatest number, by mobilizing partners at the national level, if it is a long-term project rather than a one-off action.”



It is great achievement for us since it means that our Human Practices efforts will have long term repercussions at the national scale.

INTERNATIONAL HIGHSCHOOL

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Intervention Report

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Introduction

The 3^rd of October, we have been in the international high school of Toulouse, to share our experience as iGEMers. First, we have met 20 high school students, in their biology class with the head of science M. David Faure. Then, we presented our Cerberus project to the entire high school, composed of teenagers from 11 to 19 years old, and their teachers. The aim of this intervention was to share our experiences, open their mind on the wide possibilities biology studies can offer, and the importance of multidisciplinary.

Meeting in a high school biology class

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We have met the biology high school class of Mister David Faure. We presented ourselves and our different school carrier in order to inform them on the possibilities offer to them after high school in university. Then, we presented the iGEM competition and our Cerberus project, we also discussed why we chose to participate to this adventure. By speaking about the multidisciplinarity of the iGEM competition, we also alerted them on the importance of the human practice and the fact that we can not create science without having a human practices research.

Presentation

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We presented our Cerberus project in front of 230 high school students from 9 to 19 years old and their professors. We presented first the iGEM competition, secondly the reasons why we have chosen to develop Cerberus and its potential. Thirdly, we explained our labwork and we showed them our funny results, they really liked pink cellulose and paramagnetic fabrics. Finally, we developed our human practice approach, and we explained how the society perception improved our Cerberus project in order to be more acceptable.

Journal ?

Some students have been very interested, they would like to write an article on their high school journal. After iGEM competition, we would work with them to write this article and speak about our giant jamboree results we hope would be wonderful.

Additional relection

It has been a rewarding intervention, sharing our experience as scientist to maybe create new calling. We have been three women to participate to this intervention, and according to Mister David Faure: “You have been a great exemple of women in sciences, the impact and importance of multidisciplinary competences and the quality of our studies in university.”