PROJECT PROPOSAL FOR COLLABORATION BETWEEN OSS AND FEBIOTEC Project title : Biotechnofarm Project description : Biotechnofarm is a series of events around education and science communication that will happen in Spain along the year 2016. The activities were launched after a successful funding application from FEBiotec to the Spanish public administration. The aim is to target around 4000 students in the entire country, and give them opportunities to interact with graduate and undergraduate students with experience in academic research. The main goal is to expand their curiosity and interest related to science, and specially biotechnology, genetic engineering, and synthetic biology. Description of Open Science School (OSS) : Open Science School (OSS) is a Frenchbased nonprofit association with activities and volunteers in Spain, France, UK, US, and China. The main goal of OSS is to promote science research outside the doors of the laboratories, using different approaches: the creation of cheap and easytouse open source lab equipment, lab kits for schools and learners, workshops for students and young professionals in the design/arts field, and communication campaigns. OSS has as core values: interdisciplinarity, open source, and learningbydoing pedagogy. Deliverables : The calendar of event foresee two round son activities in April 2016 and October 2016. It counts to address around 4000 students in the entire country. That is roughly equivalent to 150 to 200 high school class groups.FEBiotec counts reaching half of the student by May 2016 and the second half by November 2016. Role of OSS : OSS will deliver 100 complete kits to the HQ of FEBiotec in Madrid by Spring 2016, each kit with sufficient materials to cover the extraction of color from Streptomyces coelicolor in the classroom of the high school, inspired by the publication “ In Living Color: Bacterial Pigments as an Untapped Resource in the Classroom and Beyond” (PLOS 2010 Louise K. Charkoudian et al. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000510). The kits will include the necessary materials to grow S. coelicolor, but the association FEBiotec or the local coordinator will need to supply vinegar, alcohol and ash soda to the schools in order to complete the activity. OSS will provide 30 Glass lab alcohol lamps (250 ml) and 200 kit boxes with materials for 30 people, which is enough for a high school class group in Spain: Reagents oneuse only Chicken broth + agar (autoclaved) 500ml plastic bottles (autoclavable)
Plasticware / oneuse only
1 L 2 bottles
Units per kit
Sterile inoculating loop (indv. packed)
40
Sterile plastic petri dishes ⌀15 cm
30
Painting brush small
10
Test tubes plastic
30
Gloves plastic film 1use Pipette Pasteur 2ml plastic nonsterile Cotton pads nonsterile (Kg)
200 30 0.1
Thin permanent marker black
1
Open Science School will as well provide training, support, guidance, protocols and troubleshooting during 2016 for the activities in Biotechnofarm. Open Science School will promote the activities of Biotechnofarm and FEBiotec outside Spain and help make connections with similar projects around the world. Open Science School commits to send a trainer to a location in the country of Spain for a training session in Spring 2016. All protocols, guidelines and outcomes of the project will be released under a Creative Commons license and freely available on the internet. We recommend acquiring from Public Labs the open source spectrometer, which is available online (for 45 US dollars) and will provide scientific quantitative tools for the learners. We remind the need of a microwave in the school, as well as ash soda, vinegar, and alcohol solutions. Role of FEBiotec : FEBiotec will be manager of the project and will recognize OSS as a partner in the project and benefactor due to the nonprofit aims, as well as the John Innes Centre in Norwich, UK, who is the proprietary of the S. coelicolor strains. FEBiotec will distribute the kits from its HQ in Madrid to the different high schools participating in the project and will promote the project within Spain. FEBiotec will coordinate the timing of the activities and the volunteers as well as take care of and ensure the distribution of the shared materials and the protocols, presentation and knowhow among the students, teachers and volunteers. Curriculum : the activities of this project in the classroom will be in the crossroads between art, physics, chemistry, biology and technology. The material, available in English and Spanish, will create an international and interdisciplinary setup for the students to have an alternative experience in their schools. The curriculum will address these different questions (as adapted from PLOS): Leads into chemistry, microbiology, and biotechnology ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Chemical composition of paint (solubility and states of matter) Structures of pigment molecules (electromagnetic radiation, electron configuration, valence bonds, molecular orbital theory) Culturing Streptomyces and extracting their pigments (sterile culture techniques, natural product extraction techniques, solubility) Painting Streptomyces on agar plates (bacterial growth control) Engineering bacteria to make new pigments (metabolic engineering of microbial systems) Scaling up the production of bacterial pigments (large scale bioprocessing techniques, recombinant DNA technology) UV absorber and radical scavengers as additives to paints (chemical structure and reactivity, radical reactions)
Leads into fine arts ● ● ● ● ●
The perception of color (electromagnetic radiation, the eye as a spectrometer) Paint constituents (pigments, binders, solvents, surfactants, additives) Sources of pigments Making paints from pigments (grinding pigments, suspending in binder) History of pigments (art history)
Fun stuff ●
Drawing on paper with bacteriaderived paint
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Creating living art by painting with bacteria on agar medium
Questions to gauge interest and knowledge before the lesson ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
What do you think of when you think of bacteria? Why do we need to sterilize our tools before growing bacteria? What do bacteria need to grow? What is a natural product? Why are objects colored? How are paints made? Why do paints fade over time?
Questions to gauge understanding after the lesson ● ● ● ●
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What are some ways in which bacteria can be useful to humans? How do bacteria produce useful natural products? ○ How can we manipulate bacteria to create new products? What are some sources of natural products and how can we harness them? ○ Why do some pigments prefer organic solvents to water? What makes us perceive color? ○ Why are some molecules colored and some are not? ○ How can we use the color wheel to predict an object's color from its absorption spectrum? How can we prevent paints from fading over time?
Evaluative activities ●
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Have students present their projects and discuss what their initial plans were, what could have been improved along the way, and what things surprised them about working with bacteria and pigments. Have students research an aspect of paint production, color, or microbiology and present their findings to the class.