Meeting Gold Medal Criteria Background Initiatives Grow-your-own-Cress kits and Comic Writing questions for Chemistry Race Smallpeice Biomedical Engineering Workshop Open Day at Cambridge London school visits BioHackathon Visit to Arlington Manor Root Cause Digilab: Mission Transformation Paper of the Week

Background

Synthetic biology has been gaining increasing relevance to people’s lives, generating important products ranging from microbes that can clean up oil spills, to mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Yet, compared to traditional fields of science, there are less opportunities for the public to engage with this field. While it is easy for people to notice and discuss physical phenomena or the physiology of our bodies, the quiet power of synthetic biology usually goes unnoticed. Skepticism around the safety of products, such as genetically modified food, only exacerbates this issue. Hence, we hoped to introduce synthetic biology to a wider audience with our educational initiatives.

Apart from the lack of attention that goes to synthetic biology, another major issue (and perhaps a contributing factor to the aforementioned one) that we noticed is that synthetic biology knowledge is quite inaccessible. In fact, this is a problem with science in general, but is particularly pronounced in synthetic biology. Even if someone wanted to learn more about this field, if they didn’t have a university-level background in biology, it would probably be immensely difficult for them to develop this interest. This is due to barriers such as the heavy use of technical jargon, and the lack of access to laboratories. The average person cannot be expected to know what CRISPR or plasmids are or have access to pipettes and reagents.

Initiatives

Grow-your-own-Cress kits and Comic

Introducing children to the scientific method, and allowing them to immerse themself in it through hands-on learning, is an important part of encouraging them to think critically about their surroundings, inspiring an interest in science. To achieve this, we developed a lesson plan for teachers of children ages 8 to 10 - this includes a comic and an experimental protocol (1). The comic is a brief detail of how synthetic biology can be used in the real world (with the example of our ideal device being given) with care taken to emphasize the fact that science is not always easy so as to not solely promote synthetic biology to the public. In addition to the comic, the cress experiment was designed as it was decided that experiential learning was a good approach for educating younger children, given their shorter attention spans, focusing on their innate ability to learn through sensory experiences. This experiment will additionally emphasize the challenges of science and synthetic biology in the real world due to experiments not always working in the ways that they are intended to.

The experiment was designed to encourage children to apply the concepts that they learned about in the powerpoint - such as what a ‘hypothesis’ and ‘prediction’ are - to a real life experiment, utilising cress. It involves the children adding mystery salt solutions to cress seeds and attempting to order the mystery solutions from lowest concentration, to highest concentration, based on their phenotypes. Our team undertook multiple cress experiments with known salt concentrations, to find a group of 3; one that prevented the seeds from germinating entirely, one that allowed the seeds to germinate slightly but left the plants unhealthy, and one that allowed the cress to germinate and grow easily.

The experiment was designed to give children a taste of the process of data collection, as they will need to record observations of their plants each day, to order the mystery salt concentrations. The experiment also conveys the importance of fair tests, as students have to ensure plants grow in similar conditions, such that they can ensure that differences in growth are only due to the water they receive. Moreover, the simplicity of the experiment ensures a high success rate among the children, creating a sense of accomplishment and providing positive reinforcement, encouraging them to continue to learn about science.

This experiment went through multiple iterations of design with the final protocol being tested by a member of the team not involved in the development of the protocol. This ensured that the protocol was easy to follow and that any weaknesses had been adressed.

In addition to teaching the children about the scientific method, this lesson plan teaches them about how plant growth is affected by abiotic factors such as salt concentration. This then links into the aforementioned comic, which was designed to be read to the class after the experiment has wrapped up. It acts as an introduction on how scientific advances have real-world significance, using our iGEM project (a cheap, quick, and accessible diagnostic test for crop nutrient deficiencies) as an example of this.

It is our hope that, as a whole, this learning experience will act as a memorable introduction to how rewarding science can be, seeding an interest in the children.

Six Primary Schools in the Cambridge area were contacted about the lesson plan, and five of them showed interest in the resources. In addition, one school in London was also contacted and is considering adopting the lesson plan.

Resources

Cress Lesson Plan

Images showing the tests done by uninvolved team member.

Control cress with normal water added to them

Cress with 0.25g/mL of salt water added to them

Cress with 0.5g/mL of salt water added to them

Cress with 1g/mL of salt water added to them

Comic

Writing questions for Chemistry Race

We decided that problem-based learning may be a good strategy for introducing synthetic biology to students already competent in other fields of science. Not only would this be a more engaging experience, but getting them to actively work with concepts in synthetic biology would ensure thorough understanding of the principles behind them. To execute this, we wrote a range of synthetic biology based questions for different competitions. Our questions were on a range of topics, from the molecular mechanisms of key enzymes used in synthetic biology, to the kinetics of experiments that we performed for our project. In each of the questions, we highlighted the importance of the process in synthetic biology, giving specific examples of their uses.

One of the competitions that we submitted questions for was Chemistry Race, an international competition based in 3 different countries, aimed at high school students with an interest in chemistry, between the ages of 16-18. The competition consists of 60 questions, and we had 3 of our submitted questions accepted to be in the 2026 Chemistry Race competition. With a turn out of 80 teams of 5 people from the UK alone for last year’s competition, this will help expose hundreds of high school students to the concept of synthetic biology. We hope that introducing synthetic biology to them in the form of problems will allow them to consider the field in the context of science they are already familiar with - building a new interest from pre-existing foundations.

Smallpeice Biomedical Engineering Workshop

We went to the University of Southampton to assist in delivering a 4-day course on biological engineering, run by the Smallpeice Trust, to incoming year 12 students. We are grateful to have been invited back to help with the programme, as the Cambridge 2024 iGEM team also helped with this outreach initiative. As one of the UK’s leading STEM education charities, Smallpeice strives to broaden access to science to students of underrepresented backgrounds. As such, this course aligns with our goal of making science more accessible.

Additionally, we identified that participants came from engineering backgrounds, and were likely unfamiliar with synthetic biology, which is not traditionally seen as a subfield. As such, we hoped this course would pique these engineers’ interest in this emerging field, encouraging them to continue exploring biology in their future studies, potentially bringing their expertise in modelling and hardware to the table.

We gave multiple presentations on the basics of plasmid construction, biological parts, fluorescent proteins, and biosensors for the first three days. In order to equip the students with practical skills, we also showed them how to use Benchling for golden gate assembly, AlphaFold to generate structures of their proteins, and the iGEM parts website to find different parts to incorporate into their plasmid.

The students then participated in a hackathon-like competition. Problem-based learning opportunities like this would allow participants to apply the techniques and knowledge that they had just learnt, consolidating their learning. Participants were split into 4 groups of 3, and tasked to design a plasmid that would transform E. coli into a biosensor. Drawing on last year’s team’s advice, we asked students to come up with their own real-world problems to target, instead of pre-preparing scenarios for them. We soon realised that it was difficult for the students to come up with ideas from scratch, so we provided more guidance to the teams on the day, helping identify problems to solve. We ended up with a good variety of projects - from a pathogen detector that uses ssDNA as a proxy, to the detection of amyloid beta via NF-κB for the convenient diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in brain tissue samples.

Looking at their poster boards, and listening to the presentations that they gave on the last day, we were very pleased by their enthusiasm, and how thoroughly they understood the concepts of plasmids and biological circuits.

Aside from gauging participants’ understanding based on the final day presentations, we also collected explicit feedback from students with a form, and the results were encouraging. Around 70% of the students reported being able to confidently use AlphaFold by themselves, with one student answering that the presentations were very good at “showing us how to access great Web tools”. Over 80% reported being confident or very confident with the concept of biosensors, and two thirds of the cohort described themselves as being confident or very confident on plasmid assembly. The feedback also highlighted some areas that we could further improve on - for example, a student reported that they best understood with “the explanations further on with the diagrams”. Additionally, 80% of the students answered that the pacing of the presentation was slightly fast - upon reflection, we realized that we may have overestimated their background knowledge in biology, given their primary interest is in engineering. In the future, we will be more careful in evaluating the background knowledge of our target audiences.

Poster boards produced by some of the groups to present their biosensors

Plasmid designed by one of the groups, consisting of a promoter, ribosome binding site, coding sequence and terminator

Structure of a fluorophore generated by students using AlphaFold

Resources

Smallpeice Biomedical Engineering Workshop powerpoint

Open Day at Cambridge

For the Cambridge University open days, held on 10th and 11th July 2025, we set up a booth in the Department of Biochemistry where we spoke to prospective Cambridge University applicants about our iGEM project, as well as synthetic biology in general. Although they had a prior interest in biology, many of the students that we talked to had not yet encountered synthetic biology. Through small group, two-way interactions, we were able to better gauge the understanding of individual students and cater to their level of knowledge while introducing our project. We also advised interested applicants on which courses they should pursue should they want to learn more about synthetic biology.

Left: iGEM team members explaining the project to prospective Cambridge University. Right: poster describing the project, and the synthetic biology involved.

Unexpectedly, we also had the opportunity to discuss our project with various professors helping out with open day. Not only were we able to introduce our project and methods to a broader demographic, they also kindly offered insights and advice on aspects of our project, such as pointing us towards TapeStation as a way to quantify miRNA.

iGEM team members discussing aspects of the project with Professor Martin Welch, who provided valuable insights into the challenges of working with small RNAs.

London school visits

In order to engage with sixth form students and give them a taste of what real world research is like, 2 team members gave lectures at 2 state-funded schools in London (Haydon School and St. Olave’s Grammar School). These schools were selected in order to maximise impact, as state schools tend to provide fewer opportunities for students to see what is possible for them to do past high school. Building off the presentations and feedback we got from the Smallpeice presentations, our lectures aimed to be an accessible introduction to synthetic biology, with our iGEM project as a vehicle to explain different technologies (such as RCA and Hybridisation) and how they can be applied to solve a problem. Beyond passing on knowledge, we also attempted to pass on our experience working on the project. In this way, we gave them an insight into our challenges and achievements, throughout the research process. This gave them a holistic view of the world of synthetic biology and science in general.

To be able to learn from the students and improve our presentation, we asked the students after the first presentation to fill out a feedback form to gauge what was done well and what could be improved. The form reported an average percentage increase of 120%* in how much students understood about synthetic biology, which is a very encouraging figure. *This figure is calculated from students’ answers for “what level is your understanding of synthetic biology?” before and after our talk, collected on a scale of 1 to 5.

Moreover, many students conveyed a new interest in the field after attending our talk.

Responses to the question, “How interested are you in synthetic biology after this talk?” - 85% of students gave an answer of 3 or above on a scale of 5.

We are hence hopeful that our presentations were able to spark an interest in science and working in research among students, engaging more people in shaping the future of synthetic biology.

Students were also asked the question, “what did you enjoy about this talk?” A student said that it was “explained well in a manner where everyone would understand no matter if they had a good or bad understanding of the topic or their project”. Another student wrote that they enjoyed “hearing the process and experience of the research, understanding the simplified topics.”

Aside from positive comments, we received constructive suggestions for improvement as well - these were mainly on our explanations of particular scientific concepts (DNA replication and hybridization). This same criticism was reflected in the detailed feedback we received from one of the team member’s siblings, who is a Year 12 student - our target audience. They helped us figure out the baseline for students’ knowledge, allowing us to tailor the presentation in order to make it more accessible. This feedback was critical to a better reception at the second school we did the presentation at, where feedback showed a better understanding of the material.

In the process of educating sixth formers, we also learned a lot ourselves about accessible communication. This was channeled into improvements for our presentation of our hackathon. The positive response was also inspiring, encouraging us that the work we are doing is vital to making synthetic biology more inclusive to people of all backgrounds.

Resources

BioHackathon

Given the emphasis that most biology curricula place on rote learning and mark schemes (e.g. A Level, IB), sixth formers aspiring to be scientists often lack the opportunity to apply their knowledge in solving real-world problems. However, we believe that it is exactly the latter that allows maximal engagement with learning material, as it requires students to critically consider techniques or processes, instead of just memorizing them. Additionally, problem-based learning is especially appropriate when learners already have some background knowledge of the subject, so that they have a sense of the overall landscape, and just need to find and piece details together. Therefore, we decided to host a BioHackathon for Sixth Formers as one of our educational initiatives.

The 2025 Cambridge BioHackathon was a full-day programme held at the Perse School on 4th October, consisting of a ‘Synthetic Biology Crash Course’ workshop in the morning and hackathon session in the afternoon. 26 Sixth Formers joined us for a fruitful day of learning and problem-solving.

The morning workshop aimed to equip students with techniques to apply in the hackathon session. We first introduced a wide range of techniques integral to synthetic biology, ranging from CRISPR/Cas systems to detection methods like qPCR, as well as their working principles and real-world applications. The presentation was structured around a DBTL engineering cycle to familiarise students with the synthetic biology work flow. We incorporated improvements from the previous Smallpiece Trust course into our presentation - for example, we included diagrams for most techniques discussed to aid students’ understanding.

The presentation was followed by a circuit session, where students split into five groups to speak to iGEM team members about the components of the project that they worked on (extraction, RT-qPCR, hybridization, RCA/BRET/G-quadruplex, dry lab). The session aimed to improve understanding by detailing an example of how a synthetic biology project is structured. The small-group setting allowed us to better gauge their understanding as we explained our work, judging from their reactions and by asking them questions. We also hoped that students would feel more comfortable with asking their questions in this environment - indeed, many students brought up things from the presentation that they were not entirely sure about.

After a lunch break, the hackathon session took place in the afternoon. After introducing the prompts, students worked in 6 groups of 3 to 5 to come up with a synthetic biology solution to them in 1.5 hours. The prompts were based on real-world problems, and can be found in the powerpoint linked in the resources section. Aside from asking for a synthetic biology solution to these problems, in order to simulate an actual scientific venture (or an iGEM project), we also encouraged students to consider the human aspect of their problem, by identifying stakeholders, how they are affected and how the proposed synthetic biology solutions should be tailored to them.

After giving students some time to come up with initial ideas, iGEM team members went around groups to offer guidance and discuss the feasibility of their ideas. We were pleased to see that many of their proposed solutions made use of concepts discussed in the morning - such as gene drives, antibodies and fluorophores. Their ability to apply these techniques is an encouraging indication that they were able to understand them well.

At the end, each group was given 10 minutes to present their solutions and answer questions from the audience. Students were enthusiastic in questioning other groups, reflecting that they considered the work of their peers critically, which is a good exercise in scientific thinking. We were very impressed by the high-quality solutions, considering they are just starting Year 12 or 13. Not only were the proposals creative, they were also scientifically backed, outlined in detail and reflected consideration of human aspects, demonstrating much thought.

The Biology teacher with whom we organized this activity, Dr Andrew Catherall-Ostler, indicated interest to conduct a similar event with Cambridge’s 2026 iGEM team, perhaps even involving more local Sixth Forms. Not only does this serve as a positive indication of the value of this event, it makes it more pertinent for us to collect feedback from students such that improvements can be made to the workshop hosted next year. Hence, we sent out a feedback form for participants to fill out.

Responses to the statement, “the hackathon increased my interest in synthetic biology.” Over 80% of participants agreed, which is an encouraging result.

We also asked Dr Catherall-Ostler for feedback, and his words were very kind and encouraging - he remarked that “the team used highly active and engaging pedagogic strategies which encouraged peer-to-peer, rather than instructor-centred, learning, and many of our students rated the teamwork aspect of the day as a particular success.”

In terms of things to improve on, the major criticism that we received was on the pacing of our presentation. With the intention of adequately equipping participants with techniques to apply in the hackathon, we were evidently overly ambitious in introducing concepts to them in the morning session. Unfortunately, this led to participants only having a limited amount of time to grapple with all these new concepts, especially because the presentation was given within 1.5 hours. Now that we understand that the pacing was overwhelming, in next year’s iteration, we would hope to host the event over several days instead. To facilitate students’ understanding, Dr Catherall-Ostler suggested sending powerpoints to students in advance so that they could pre-read and follow the presentation better. He also suggested hosting the hackathon later in the year, as by then, students will have learnt more about basic synthetic biology concepts as part of the school curriculum. Such a foundation would allow them to grasp new content more quickly. We are grateful for the help from the Perse School and the meaningful conversations we had with their Biology teachers. Their advice for organising the event was invaluable to the smooth running of the BioHackathon, and for us to understand how to improve in the coming years. We hope next year’s iGEM team can make good use of the feedback from this year to organize an even more successful event in the coming year.

Resources

Morning session presentation slides

Morning session circuit slides

BioHackathon prompts

Visit to Arlington Manor

Considering how senior citizens in the UK are less likely to have heard of synthetic biology than younger individuals (1), we chose to focus a portion of our education on this age group as well.

Two team members visited Arlington Manor care home to give a short presentation on the ways plants cope with nutrient deficiencies. This ended with a brief segment on our iGEM project, as well as a short introduction to synthetic biology and the safeguards in place to mitigate risks.

During our first meeting with our point of contact at the care home, we learnt that the elderly had a particular interest in botany - hence we chose to frame the presentation around gardening, to make the presentation more engaging to them. We related common symptoms of nutrient deficiencies in garden plants to their underlying molecular mechanisms, using a simplified, big-picture approach. This included a basic overview of the role of miRNAs in regulating stress responses, and how they could be used as biomarkers for plant health, providing a segue into our project - shedding light on how synthetic biology could bridge knowledge gaps when assessing plant health.

Two-way dialogue was encouraged by the addition of short pauses in the talk, where the residents of the care home were able to ask questions, creating opportunities for greater enrichment from the talk. Accessibility was also taken into account by ensuring that the speaker was loud enough, with a ‘volume check’ as we were informed that some residents were hard of hearing.

An iGEM team member explaining a simplified mechanism by which plants absorb phosphate from their environment to the elderly.

Root Cause

We realise that typical scientific presentations can feel quite one-sided and do not allow active recall of the discussed topics. To create a more engaging learning experience, and with the hopes of creating an educational resource available to a wide audience, we decided to take on a gamification approach: creating the card game, Root Cause.

Before the game begins, players can first read through a brochure introducing the problem that our project is trying to solve, as well as micro RNAs. The game itself is based on micro RNAs and plant stressors, and is mainly an effort to help the public understand the basic theory and significance behind making diagnostic devices using micro RNAs as proxies, a common strategy used in synthetic biology. It is our hope that they would come out with an understanding of the importance of making scientifically backed solutions in growing crops to maximize yield, hence combatting world hunger.

The overall goal of the game is for players to work cooperatively to bring the health points of a plant up to 15. This is done by playing the appropriate micro RNA cards in their hand, in response to the affliction cards (e.g. drought, phosphate deficiency) drawn at the start of the game. There are 25 micro RNA cards, most with multiple effects on the plant - this shows audiences firsthand how complex the micro RNA landscape is, and how widely they are used in plants’ responses to environmental stressors. There are also mutation cards, which alter the effect of micro RNA cards - this is in line with how mutations in plants could lead to phenotypic changes in their homeostatic pathways.

The game was designed to be factually accurate - micro RNA cards were assigned effects based on a broad literature review, in which signalling pathways were identified and the relative significance that micro RNAs had on curing crops were determined. To take a look at the micro RNAs we featured and the effects we assigned to them, you can refer to the linked file in the resources section.

Another key feature of the game is that it is visually accessible, so that we can reach as wide of an audience as possible. For example, we used large font sizes and colour coding on cards. Furthermore, certain colours were avoided together as during our initial meeting with a worker at Arlington Manor Care Home, we were informed that some of the residents of the care home had a difficult time distinguishing between red and orange, and blue and black.

We initially designed this game with the intention of giving it to the residents of Arlington Manor Care Home to play. However, upon finishing our presentation, we decided that the game was too complex for them to grasp and play enjoyably within time constraints. As a result, we instead distributed the game to the Perse School during the lunchtime session at their Biology Society. We received highly positive feedback from participants, quote, “It was nice to work as a group to strategise the best way to save the plant, but what I especially enjoyed about the game is the material we could learn from the experience!” The success of Root Cause is further reflected by a Perse school teacher’s request for a soft copy of the game, reflecting interest to produce more sets of the game for future use in classroom settings.

We also received constructive feedback on how to improve our game - as attribute cards and miRNA effect cards for the same plant stress have matching colours, students have raised concerns on whether this prevents participants from reading the cards in detail and learning about the effects of miRNA. It is worth considering whether or not this colour code should be removed.

Beyond bringing Root Cause to different institutions, we also wanted to make the game to anyone with an interest to play. Therefore, we have uploaded all resources required to play the game on this website. Anyone is free to print the cards out and have a go with friends. We understand that not everyone has a 3D printer for printing the score-keeping tower, but it can be replaced by keeping track of points on a piece of paper. Moreover, future teams are welcome to download and build on our card game, whether it be adding more micro RNAs, environmental stresses or mutations.

The white cylinder on the right is the score-keeping tower that we 3D-printed for Root Cause.

Our team enjoying a trial of the prototype version of Root Cause under the sun.

Resources

Root Cause card template

Root Cause rules

Digilab: Mission Transformation

The Internet has made it much easier for people to learn about theoretical scientific knowledge. However, we recognized that access to hands-on aspects of the field is quite restricted - unless people studied science in sixth form/ university, or worked in science for a living. We hope to increase public engagement and interest in synthetic biology by showing that there is more to science than reading papers and developing theories, achieving this by developing the online game, Digilab: Mission Transformation. Aside from giving people a taste of what it’s like working in a lab, another reason for creating an interactive protocol is to make the learning experience more effective and enjoyable through gamification.

Players are first given access to a document that includes an introduction to the principles behind transformation, as well as a “protocol” for them to follow throughout the game. The instructions are clearly written to cater to people with varying biological backgrounds, so that the game can reach as wide of an audience as possible. The document also contains bits of extra information regarding the rationale behind steps for players with a stronger scientific background and/or interest.

With the document open on another tab or device, players can begin the game. Digilab: Mission Transformation is basically a walkthrough of the entire process of transforming E. coli to make them express GFP: from preparing competent cells, to heat shocking them, recovery, plating, and selecting the final colonies. Players are introduced and instructed to use common pieces of lab equipment, such as pipettes, centrifuges and incubators. Aside from repetitive processes that would slow down the pace of the game, we tried to make the process as detailed and realistic as possible, including details such as having to balance a centrifuge before using it.

A beta version of the game was first tested by members of the team (aside from the game developer), and improvements were made according to feedback. It was then given to participants of the Smallpeice biological engineering course to teach them about transformation. Participants were enthusiastic to play through the levels, which is a reassuring indication that the game was able to engage them despite having little prior knowledge of transformation or working in a biological lab. This phase of testing also allowed us to discover a bug that causes the game to freeze if players didn’t follow the online protocol, which was fixed afterwards. The finalized version of the game was disseminated on our Instagram page, and also sent to a Sixth Form and primary school for distribution to students.

Screenshots from various stages of the game.

Resources

The PNGs for most sprites in the game have been uploaded to a Google Drive folder - any team that wishes to make simulations for other experiments in the future, or improve the current game, are free to do so with these files.

Paper of the Week

Aside from targeting specific audiences like sixth formers or the elderly, we hoped to make synthetic biology more accessible to anyone who has an interest in it. With calls for open access in recent years, it is encouraging to see paywalls being taken down and a sizeable amount of articles and papers becoming free to read. However, the problem remains that it is difficult for people not studying or working in science to understand these papers, due to the abundance of complex concepts usually left unexplained and the heavy use of jargon.

In mind of these difficulties, we created and published Paper of the Week videos on our Instagram page (@igemcam) throughout July to October. With this series, we aimed to ease people into exploring scientific research currently being published in journals, both in the field of synthetic biology and beyond. Even for audiences unfamiliar with synthetic biology, we hoped to strike an interest in the field by showcasing the elegance of its tools, and the significance of its real-world applications.

Every week, a team member would discuss an interesting synthetic biology-related paper in more accessible terms, in videos around 2-3 minutes in length. Topics ranged from directed evolution and CRISPR/Cas systems to RFdiffusion, a model for creating de novo proteins. Explanations are aided by diagrams and cat memes to keep viewers engaged. To accommodate audiences with a stronger biology background, higher-level information and links to the original papers were made available in our comment section and a Google Doc as well. In the same document, scripts are made available as well to maximise the accessibility of our content. The videos were posted with hashtags such as #syntheticbiology and #synbio to reach a wider audience beyond our existing follower base.

Snippets from different iGEM team member’s Paper of the Week videos.

Our Paper of the Week videos performed well, with videos averaging 1,000 views, and a total watch time of over 20 hours. This is testament to how we were able to engage a wide audience in learning about synthetic biology, as we had intended!

The collection of Paper of the Week videos completed by the iGEM team.

The process of creating these videos was also an inspiring learning experience for team members. The inaccessibility of scientific papers is a huge problem, and we are well aware that our videos can only tackle it in a very limited way. But the process of translating technical terms and concepts requiring a high level of prerequisite knowledge into explanations understandable by the public acted as valuable practice for us. Moving forward in our studies or even careers in science, we feel better equipped to communicate the work we are doing with people outside of the field.