Since 2007, SynBERC has partnered with MIT’s Saturday Engineering Enrichment and Discovery (SEED) Academy, a free program for underserved high school students living in Boston, Cambridge, and Lawrence. Massachusetts. The SEED Synthetic Biology Course for Seniors was funded by SynBERC and the curriculum was designed by SynBERC graduate students, with SynBERC investigators Kristala Prather and Natalie Kuldell serving as advisers to the project. The course is taught each spring to the SEED senior class; 65 students have participated in the past four years. The curriculum and course materials have been tested and refined through each teaching cycle.

The course identifies and focuses on the top three “must knows” of synthetic biology, connecting these ideas to labs. Detailed lesson plans teach students how to construct and conduct the experiments that lead to discovery, and opening their eyes to the possibility that they are capable of hatching the next big idea. Click here to view the SEED Synthetic Biology Course for Seniors lab manual.

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SEED seniors, spring 2009.