Hi there,

Our team consists of 6 high school, 3 university students and 2 instructors. We are all so excited about iGEM HS 2013. We were ordinary people, who were just dealing with daily issues. Thank to SynBio and iGEM for giving such chance to us. Below you can find our team video prepared for iGEM 2013. "iGEM" brings us together"

Hi Dear iGEMers and the others,

Have you met E.Coli and B.Subtilis? Yes, these are the cute little bacteria that you are working on them at laboratory. They are small but smart bacteria. They are trying to be heard by humankind on twitter. Not just that, they are also instruct us about iGEM and synthetic biology. Of course they are doing it with their own interpretation.

Beside to be so active like this, both of the bacteria have different characteristics although they get along with each other. Let's get to know them closer:

E.Coli: Born on 1885. He is the unique king of the Eubacteria Kingdom. He is friend with B.Subtilis over a hundred year. He loves living in large intestine most. On the other hand, he wouldn't say no for a chocolate cake. His lifetime wish is to be the king of the world -or the universe with his words- when the day come that evolution has been completed.

B.Subtilis: Born on 1835. He has a modest lifestyle. E.Coli is his best friend-maybe because of he is his only friend. He hates antibiotics. Quiet places is his best. He prefers lemonade to chocolate His lifetime wish is to go to Pollyanna's village and continiue to his modest life. Although he is modest he says "When the world orders have changed, They will show the respect that I deserve!"

If you wanna learn more about E.coli and B.subtilis, now visit and follow their twitter addresses!

https://twitter.com/SubBacillus

https://twitter.com/E_coli1885

As a human practises work, we were trying find out a influential way to inform the society about iGEM and SynBio. We decided on the group that would talk to. Public awareness was a serious issue, therefore we claimed the public as our first group.

Subsequently, we debated about how to inform the public effectively. We found out some efficient ways, and epening a stand in a shoppingmall was one of them. We choosed Nata Vega as a place, because it is the one of the biggest shoppingmall in Turkey. It also has famous brands which are only exist in there.

On 6 April 2013, our group has moved to the mall. We managed to complete our stand on 10.00 o’clock when the visitors has just reached. Our school has assists us with the bus to carry our materials. Days before, we had have sent our brochures for distrubuted the shops under the roof of NataVega.

We were ready with our balloons, brochures and ofcourse knowledge of SynBio, iGEM. We did estemeed number of presentations. Balloons were great idea to attractc people to our stand. We talked about what is SynBio and iGEM, example projects. Busra had borrowed her uncle’s camera to take professionals photos.

We did an attribution to be able to be better. Mariye and Dilara have distrubuted booklets and informed the people who visited our stand. Busra have taken photos. Beril and Sinem have distrubuted the balloons, booklets and also invited people to our stand. Most of the visitors were families, except that business men and student groups visited our stand as well.

After six hours, we have finished our presentations. It was a hard experience for us coming back with those equipments, they were really heavy, but it worth. We met people who can help us in our future projects, too. We met people who can help us in our future projects, too.

Here are the original brochures that we distrubuted on the mall (You can see the images with full size by clicking the small images)

Here are the English version of out brochures

Below you can find some photos from our mall event

Hi there,

Our team consists of 6 high school, 3 university students and 2 instructors. We are all so excited about iGEM HS 2013. We were ordinary people, who were just dealing with daily issues. Thank to SynBio and iGEM for giving such chance to us. Below you can find our team video prepared for iGEM 2013. "iGEM" brings us together"

We organized a SynBio day at the kindergarden. Our purpose was teaching new, different areas to kids and endearing science. We also aimed to measure their understanding of bacteria. First idea has came with the question :

"SynBio was a science area on university level. Although İgemhs competition showed us even high school students can understand and learn specific knowledge from SynBio. Why don’t we inform kindergarden students with the amount and level of information they can be able to understand?"

Those kids going to be futures astronauts, policemen, doctors, teachers etc. Does anyone ask how properly they know being an astronaut? So they can understand what we do, what bacteria are. We contacted with the teachers in Burc Child Academies, and explained our purpose. They were tend to do these kind of activities, so they let us to spend some good time with our little friends :)

On the first Kindergarden SynBio Day there was a group of kids aged between the range 3 – 6. Hatice Kursun, Sinem Fırat and Busra Gulecer went to Burc Child Academies, on 7th June 2013, at 10.30. Our friends prepared a great presentation on Powerpoint which is really colorfull and attractive. Presentation included brilliant pictures about bacteria. They also prepared a sketch, consisting of two beneficial hand made cartoon bacteria, to make children understand better.

Here are the notable questions that our friends asked to kids before the presentation and kids’ reaction to the questions:

Have you ever heard the word bacteria?

- Most of the kids have had heard about it.

Do you know that which functions bacteria have?

- Our friends got such answers: they sicken us, harm our teeth. The word bacteria didn’t not have a good impression on them.

Our friends have informed them with their presentation. They showed kids that there are some beneficial bacteria as well, and they are useful. Finally kids decided to pick our cartoon bacteria as friends :)

The first Kindergarden SynBio day passed great. Second Kindergarden SynBio day will come with surprises !!!

Below you can find our photos

Below you can find our powerpoint slide

Our purpose in conducting this survey was to observe if people have enough information about synthetic biology, bacteria and activities which are related to them, or not. We surveyed with over 100 people. Most of them are high school students. The survey consist of 10 questions with 3 answer options.

You can find our survey in Turkish

You can find our survey in English

Question - 1

Are all kinds of bacteria harmful?

98% of the participants think that not all kinds of bacteria are harmful and say that some bacteria are even useful. It is suprising.

Question - 2

Do you have enough information about bacteria?

Most of participant haven’t got enough information about bacteria

Question - 3

Might bacteria be useful for the humanity?

97% of the people we have asked answered "yes" to this question.

Question - 4

Do you think that transferring genes to bacteria in order to gain various useful functions is justifiable?

For %38 of participants it is not justifiable. We need to inform people more about SynBio and its works.

Question - 5

Do you know which functions bacteria have/might have (except for illness)?

That is a good ratio. Still there are some people don’t know about bacteria’s function

Question - 6

Do you think that changing genes is acceptable?

Most of the participants think that transferring genes is ok, but changing genes on the other hand is not right.

Question - 7

Have you ever heard of E.Coli?

%55 of the participants have not heard about E.coli

Question - 8

Might be bacteria enjoying?

Most of them said that bacterias might not be enjoying.

Question - 9

Do you think that you have enough knowledge about synthetic biology?

60% of the people noticed that they don’t know enough about SynBio.

Question - 10

Do you follow competitions and activities about Synthetic Biology?

82% of the pople don’t know about activities related to bacteria/SynBio like iGEM.

As 2013 iGEM HS participants, NGSS TURKEY, we made an Introduction to Primary School Students. On 15th of May, we invited them to our school and organized a well designed presentation. They were all senior year students at a primary school, and as they have a High School Entrance Examination (SBS), SynBio and iGEM presentation was like a breathe for them.

Beril Gurdap has presented and Busra Gulecer has taken the photos, and she also prepared the presentation. We gave place to important notes in Powerpoint, and prepared a presentation according to that. The presentation was consisting of brief descriptions and lasted for nearly 45 minutes. Beyond the PowerPoint presentation Beril also gave place to information about our team, NGSS TURKEY.

Firstly, we explained what SynBio is. We mention the differences and similarities between genetical engineering and SynBio. We measured how the audience know about SynBio. We proved again that SynBio is a young field of science.

As every slide included iGEM logo, we explained what the igem is, too  We got th attention on this part. They asked about how to participate. We explained them in the way as good as we can. We picked up next years iGEMers :)

The heart of İgem, SynBio. Pipettesss!!! We could not afford one, so we could not show what it is like in real life, although our media was able to make sense. These magical tools... They are certainly amazing! After those reactions we have to explain to our visitors that they can not buy one for themselves and keep it. Actually they can, but without eppendorfs and plates what to do with pipettes?

We showed them a plate and explained the points on the plate. It is so hard to believe that on these little plates there are more than millions of bacteria. We continued with sample projects of previous years. They were impressed by the shined bacteria. When we talked about the power of this light, we gave reading a book in front of luminous bacteria as an example. We also talked about the future of SynBio and asked them what they want e.coli to do.

Seeing smiling faces made us feel good :)

Below you can find our presentations

Click here for our powerpoint slide in Turkish

Click here for our powerpoint slide in English

On SynBio projects, presentations of the projects are as important as what projects are. As synthetic biologists, beyond SynBio, as scientists our intention is to inform society about new technologies, about how to make the world a better place to live and to increase the awareness of public. Society sometimes refers kids or students and sometimes people in Supermarkets. There is also one more group of people. They are businessmen. Gaining the attention of those people has slightly different benefits to SynBio Society.

Our purposes on SynBio and İgem introductions to companies have similarities with our other presentations. We are trying to inform those people about the area that we are working on. Almost ;) in every attendance we take good feedbacks. People like to hear new things, especially from youngsters. Their supports are considerable for us. With their encouragement we hope one day we are going to be able to be beneficial for humanbeings.

To present SynBio and İgem we have contacted with several companies. After couple of struggles we managed to start a communication with some of them. We prepared a stable presentation including SynBio, iGEM, Example Projects and Our Team.

Energy Market Regulatory Authory

We have contacted with Mr. Osman Birgin, who is the head of Energy Market Regulatory Authory, he was enthusiastic for such kind of activities, so he has accepted our offer. We have taken appointment from him for 5th of June 2013 , at 11.00 am. Mariye Erol and Dilara Soylu as the students and Fatma Betül Çevik as the advisor have gone for meeting. When we arrived, we had a conversation in Mr. Birkan’s room. Afterward we passed to meeting room and started our presentation. The presenatation has been done to Mr.Birgin, other department presidents and a septet of EMRA workers.

The audience has listened the presentation of little-known discipline synthetic biology and iGEM competition carefully. We’ve informed them about the studies on İgem related to energy. Our friends have answered the questions. Then we talked about the future of SynBio. Mr. Birkan offered us sending our presentation documents as an email to the ones on their email lists who are almost five hundred people.

We informed them about our outreach projects. After couple of time, Mr. Birkan offered to us sending our presentation document as email to the ones on their email list who are almost five hundred people (Document was helpful :)) We have left EMRA about 12.40 am. Beyond being able to reach our purposes, we enjoyed to spend time with them!

Halıcızade Company

From our team; Mariye Erol, Dilara Soylu and Fatma Betül Çevik have established communication with the founder and the head of Halicızade Company, Mr. Metin Özer. We have talked about whether we can make a presentation or not Mr. Ozer has accepted our offer.

The presentation has been placed on 5 June 2013, at 14.00. It has lasted for 30 minutes. Firstly we explained what SynBio and İgem is. Then we have showed the works of previous teams. After we completed the presentation, they spent some time on possible kinds of projects that can be done in the area of SynBio. It was a beneficial presentation for us and him, Mr. Ozer has given his thanks. Afterward we left him our presentation and sponsorhip document and left Halıcızade Company at 14.00.

Below you can find some photos from the our presentations

FIRAT COMPANY

Mr. Fırat has accepted our presentation offer kindly. On 18 May, at 10.00 a.m. Sinem and Hatice from our team went to Fırat Company for the presentation. Audience consisted of six person. We used the powerpoint slides to inform the listeners. After sincere conversation we left the company. It was a succesfull presentation, we also developed our presentation skills.

Below you can find some photos from the our presentations

Here are our presentation documents :

Click here for our powerpoint slide in Turkish

Click here for our powerpoint slide in English

Click here for our sponsorship and presentation document in Turkish

Click here for our sponsorship and presentation document in English

The time that we have spent in public transportations, most of the time, is wasted time. Imagine that you are in the subway, in the bus, walking or shopping; group of people came out started to tell you about such intersting issues. Wouldn’t it great? Today you learn something new dude!

Why am I telling that? We are also part of the mass. In order to arouse the interest We printed some cute brochures - OK they were well designed but we couldn’t print them all in colours(By the way, we also used the last brochures which were left over from the information stand in the shopping mall ). It was our goal to make iGEM understandable for every member of the society.

Where have we made our presentations ? Subway, bus, shopping mall, street, picnic area – everywhere we could see any human beeing! If we had a sea or a river in the neighborhood ships couldn’t escape us either. We informed people about SynBio and iGEM by leaving out the technical language out as far as possible, so even children could understand us.

We had very positive feedback and especially elderly persons stated that they are very proud of us to take part in scientific projects like iGEM at such a young age.

We also have some funny moments (especially in the subway). It was a really nice experience!

Below you can find our brochures

For English

For Turkish

Below you can find our photos

Hey Guys,

This is our Comics. Hope oyu like it. Next year it will contain more and more colour

TO - DO

Below you can find some photos

One day of an iGEMer: "Experiment, wiki, experiment, wiki, experiment, wiki... zZzZzZz..."

Listening Ayşe Sister's guitar was a great pleasure for us. Also Dilara can play, but... In our free times, it is not valid actually, we played table tennis or took videos. The best parts of the days, definitely, meal times. Beril's mother bought us a baklava (turkish dessert, yummy!) for once :) Our traditional meal is pizza. Ordering pizza is cheaper than the others. We can choose "Secrets" as our favourite team song. Our favourite sport is wrestling, also.After three weeks that we stayed in the lab, we have collected some funny moments. Beyond them we took some videos else too. Enjoy it!"

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Safety is an important issue for lab experiments. We have created a safety text and also safety video! The name of our video is “Lab over Clouds”. You can find our safety text just under the video.

Attributions

All of us work hard for iGEM 2013. But our particular thanks go to the esteemed people and foundations behind the scenes...

Firstly we want to thank our school, Ankara Private Atlantik Nevin Gökçek Science High School , to give us such opportunities.

Our very special thanks go to...

Wet Lab Works

...Turgut Ozal University (former Fatih) for providing their labs and other facilities for us. We also want to thank our head advisor Assoc. Prof. Esra Gündüz who was ready at anytime to support us.

...Sentegen for helping us to to provide our genes, special thanks for cool centrifuge.

...the whole team, especially to our advisors: Fatma Betül Çevik, Ayşe Demirci, Esma Ölmez who were always with us.

Wiki

... Ms. Havva Gulay Gurbuz – graduate student at Bilkent University. She spent a lot of her time for us.

... Busra Nur Aydın who helped us with designing - she has magical hands.:)

...Mr. Kasım Özkan who helped us with doing our comics.

Funding

We want to thank Mr. Osman Birgin , who is the head of Energy Market Regulatory Authory for finding us generous funds. He did things which mean a lot for us.

We want to thank our school again in this chapter. They provided their sources for us.

Beyond these, we want to thank Turgut Ozal 2013 Collegiate iGEMers for being our advisors. We also want to give a special thank to Esin and Kübra Sisters for yummy meals :)

There is also one more group that we want to thank. They were supporting us in our desperative times. Our parents! Especially to Beril’s mom Mr. Hülya Gürdap for baklava (Turkish dessert) and to Dilara’s mom Mr. Özlem Soylu for transportation.

Aaaand finally: Our instructor Ms. Mihriban Ozgun for her amazing "instructorhood"