After the American School of Tampico (ATS) administration showed concern over the student body’s falling interest on STEM courses and majors, NYUAD iGEM offered to help. A recurring misception among mexican students is that STEM opportunities in Mexico are subpar and extremely limited. Thus, NYUAD iGEM perform several rounds of a short presentations showcasing opportunities in STEM majors, most prominent among them were iGEM projects. Cristian Garcia shared his experience working in the iGEM project as an ATS alumni and showcased NYUAD iGEM project and the work done by Mexican iGEM projects. Over 80 highschool students attended the presentation throughout its four different timings.
Presenter:
Doovaraha Maheswarasarma
City, Country:
Tiruchirapalli, India
Date:
Thursday, 31st of August, 2018
School/Organisation:
Orchard School, Trichy
Age group targeted:
14-18 years old
Brief Description:
The human practice in India happened at Orchard School in K.K.Nagar, Trichy, India. The interaction session with the students was supposed to be an hour long but ended being around 2 hours and a half. During the session with the students, topics such as studying abroad for STEM, numerous ways to get involved outside of academics and possible career pathways were discussed. Since Trichy is a small city, not many students were aware of opportunities to study abroad or about the different fields of education they could pursue. Students tended to limit themselves to a selected few majors like Law, Engineering, Medicine or Accountancy. While there were a few interested in sciences, that interest was also limited to the mainstream science courses like physics, biology and chemistry.Hence in this session, the iGEM member spoke to the students about different university options in and outside of India and also about different academic paths they could choose.
The discussion about career paths ranging from game design, cyber security to forensic science and chartered accountancy was interesting to both the students and the teachers, as the school management was not aware of the students’ interest in these fields. The focus was mainly on STEM fields and were often a combination of the core fields of STEM, namely biology,physics, chemistry and engineering. This discussion led to the introduction of synthetic biology as a field that students interested in biology and engineering could pursue.
As we discussed the possibility of universities abroad- the main question in hand was the requirements to get involved in things outside of academics. Out of the many suggestions made by the team member, she also presented about iGEM NYUAD’s project and explained the unique aspects that were added due to the combination of two distinct fields.
This session was followed by a question answer session in which the teachers and students asked about various topics related to STEM field.
Presenter:
Mariam Anwar
City, Country:
Cairo,Egypt
Date:
Wednesday, August 8th
School/Organisation:
Bashaer International School
Age group targeted:
11th and 12th grade biology students
Brief Description:
The students were introduced to the IGEM competition in general and informed about the different tracks as well as the different aspects of the competition such as the engineering, biology and outreach aspects. They were then briefly told about our NYU Abu Dhabi and introduced to the team members. After that, the general idea behind our project was presented and the problem our team is trying to solve, namely the issue to food safety. More focus was placed on the biology aspect of the competition as this was biology class, and the biology mechanisms used in our projects, such as bacteria transformations and different amplification methods such as PCR, LAMP and RPA, were explained in more detail. Next, the students were given an idea of what the experience of being part of such as team is like and some of the outreach activities the competition entail. Finally, the students were given the chance to ask questions about the competition and about university life and the application process in general.
Presenter:
Kai-Wen Yang
City, Country:
Kowloon, Hong Kong
Date:
July 3rd to August
School/Organisation:
King George V School, Summerbridge Hong Kong
Age group targeted:
Grade 7-9 (age 13-15)
Brief Description:
In relation to our project about food pathogen detection, one of our members taught a class about food sciences when she worked as a student teacher at Summerbridge Hong Kong (a non-profit organization, which aims to improve the educational trajectories of underprivileged students by providing them with tuition-free quality English language education and life skills development opportunities), in which she designed and taught daily for 5 weeks. With the aim of fostering the students’ passion in science and highlighting how science can be applied in our everyday lives, students learned about various science concepts through interesting hands-on experiments with materials that can be found in the kitchen. For instance, they learned about melting point depression through “Making Ice Cream” experiment, the characteristic of fat through “Color-changing Milk”, neutralization through “Building a Volcano”, vibration through “Singing Glasses”, and more. They also learned about the scientific method and applied it to their final project: the students came up with questions they were curious about from their everyday lives and the demonstrations they have done in class. The students then followed the scientific method to discover the answers to the questions, and created a little booklet to share their findings with the general public.
Presenter:
Adnan Ali-Hassan
City, Country:
Chebanieh and Beirut, Lebanon
Date:
Thursday August 23rd, Saturday August 25th
School/Organisation:
Lebanese Scouts Association
Age group targeted:
15-20 years old
Brief Description:
On Thursday August 23rd, during the weekly meeting that the Beirut 1 scouts group in the Lebanese Scouts Association holds on the International College campus in Ain El Mraysseh (Beirut, Lebanon), an NYUAD iGEM representative presented the topic of going into the STEM field to students aged from 5 to 20 years old. A discussion was then held with the leaders and it was agreed that the group to focus on was Rovers due to their age range, 15-20 years old, at a time when they’re choosing what study and work fields to go into.
The following Saturday, August 25th, a meeting was held with the Rovers, about 15 students, in an eco-cafe in the town of Chebanieh. There, many of the students spoke about what their understanding of the STEM field is, including future job opportunities. A presentation was then given from the iGEM member about the array of possible STEM majors and universities to pursue, putting attention on NYUAD as a good example that not many of the students knew about. The topic followed with what opportunities are available in the STEM field both after graduation and during university.The focus then shifted to iGEM where the presenter spoke about their team’s project and experience, as well as what iGEM is as a whole and what projects other universities have worked on in the past. The idea of starting an iGEM project the following year in new universities, such as the American University of Beirut, was also discussed. The event consisted of short presentations followed by longer conversations and took about 3 hours.
Presenter:
Sion Hau
City, Country:
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Date:
Wednesday, August 15th
School/Organisation:
Camberwell Primary School, Robogals
Age group targeted:
Grade 5s (age 10-11)
Brief Description:
In collaboration with Robogals Melbourne, NYUAD IGEM was able to integrate synthetic biology and bioengineering related topics into a hands-on engineering and robotics workshop at a local public primary school in Melbourne. Approximately 50 Grade 5 students at Camberwell Primary School had the opportunity to participate in the unique Robogals LEGO EV3 robotics workshop run by Robogals Melbourne. Robogals is a not for profit organisation founded in Melbourne that aims to encourage girls to pursue a career in engineering and other STEM related fields, seeing as their goals aligned congruently with many of NYUAD IGEM’s own outreach objectives, we integrated an informative presentation about iGEM and other opportunities in bioengineering and synthetic biology for the students to consider once they enter high school and beyond. It was a 90 minute workshop that introduced a wide range of engineering disciplines, highlighting the iGEM competition and what biosynthetic engineering is and the roles it plays in society, followed by a robotics workshop whereby students learnt to program their own Lego EV3 robot with a light and ultrasonic sensor. The students not only learnt about the wide scope of engineering and its applicability in everyday life but also had the opportunity to learn a new skill in an interactive and fun way! Special thanks to Robogals Melbourne for this wonderful collaboration.
