INTRODUCTION

Many students are not exposed to synthetic biology in their educational journeys. This year, our educational goal was to help change that standard, making synthetic biology and science more accessible. We aimed at facilitating open communication about these topics with both the local and global community. For example, we sparked conversations through our podcast comments section. Our goal led our team to further foster out-of-the-box thinking and imagination to create our initiatives. From this, we hosted eight professional-quality podcasts on topics such as bioethics, engineering, and healthcare, reaching an audience of over 16,000 people. We also interacted through our in-person school workshops with 200 middle school and high school students, where we were able to showcase to them the fun of synthetic biology. Additionally, we hosted a collaborative hackathon-style event called, 'JulyGEM' with iGEM team attending from across Canada and the United States. Lastly, our team collaborated with iGEM teams to organize the Mini Jamboree. Through our initiatives, we were able to leave a lasting impact on our community, bringing the joy of synthetic biology to those around us.

         

PODCAST

Introduction

After thinking about the best way to promote learning, we thought of how most people engage with education nowadays – through podcasts! Podcast culture has taken off these past few years. With many podcasters becoming the go-to for knowledge in neuroscience or politics, we decided using this engaging platform would be the best way to increase science accessibility while driving curiosity. We decided to follow the popular format of hosting one guest at a time and diving deep into their topic of speciality. We chose our guests to reflect iGEM’s several cores such as engineering, entrepreneurship, and safety and ethics. Our guests ranged from philosophers to electrical engineers. This idea well-utilized the skills of our teammates as well as two of them had previous experience working with photography. This was a learning experience for both the audience and us. We learnt more about videography, public speaking, editing, as well as the topics discussed.

   

Approach

   

Name Choice

For the podcast, we chose the name “Does Science Really Work?” because we wanted to address the hesitation that students had towards science and encourage them to pursue it further. The goal of our podcast is to make science more accessible and we thought a controversial question would spark more curiosity!

“Does Science Really Work?” comes from a familiar joke in student labs, “Ohh, science does work!”, said when an experiment finally goes right. It’s funny, but it also reflects a deeper feeling many undergraduate students share: that science, in our early years, often feels disconnected from real impact. We spend hours in lectures and labs, but rarely see how our knowledge applies beyond the classroom.

This podcast challenges that gap. We ask questions about various scientific fields, talk to a wide-range of experts, and explore the ethical, social, and philosophical side of science to remind ourselves, and our listeners, that science isn’t just something we learn, It’s something we live, question, and shape.

Marketing Strategy

For further promoting the podcast, here was our marketing strategy:

       

We have a well-thought out and thoughtfully implemented marketing strategy designed by our member Manar Bariq.

1. We tried to maintain posting an episode weekly starting from July 15th, 2025 while having two episodes lined up as a buffer to maintain consistency.
2. Then, after a day the main podcast will be released on YouTube
3. Subsequently after that 3+ shorts will be posted on YouTube shorts and Instagram each with a bit more of those interesting sections to attract people by revealing what are the ideas discussed in the middle of the episode.

This way, we took advantage of the multiple hours of effort the podcast took in planning, recording, and editing and marketed it in the best way to increase exposure and engagement. This also allowed science to be seen as an informative, warm, and fun source of entertainment. These opened up discussions and people were disagreeing and agreeing in the comment section (Figures 1).

           

Jason Donev – Physics

To build on iGEM’s goal of advancing synthetic biology through education and striving to create a community that finds solutions for a more sustainable world, our first guest was Dr. Jason Donev. Dr. Donev is a tenured professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Calgary. Our conversation covered topics such as the sustainability of energy and climate change. Our conversation delved into the topics of nuclear energy and introduced listeners to this fascinating field. We also discussed increasing community engagement in our energy future and what an inclusive approach looks like. From this podcast, our guests and us learned the details of our energy future and the sustainability that goes along with it. This conversation broke down an esoteric field into an accessible format. Dr. Donev expertly walked viewers through the content, keeping it both engaging and informative. Moving forward from this, we learned the importance of energy in sustainability. This inspired us to further our knowledge by attending the Global Energy Show 2025, which Dr. Donev and the University of Calgary helped us get tickets to.

Planning this podcast took almost seven hours. Around four to five hours were spent on the script, and an additional hour and forty minutes were spent practicing.

On the day of the podcast recording, it took our team an hour and thirty minutes to set up for the shoot and over an hour to record it. Afterwards, it took a member of our team four hours to edit it.

For future teams to reference, here is our draft script to guide our conversation:

Caleb Lee – Bioethics

In this podcast episode, we sat down with Dr. Caleb Lee to discuss bioethics. Dr. Caleb Lee has a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Calgary and is an associate professor who also teaches philosophy. Our aim with this podcast was to enlighten our guests and ourselves about the philosophical questions behind research and biology. These topics hold utmost relevance when tinkering with innovations. We wanted to encourage discussion on these topics to widen their reach with the community. Dr. Lee eloquently walked us through philosophical dilemmas, teaching us the basics of different approaches to these conundrums. We walked through the Helmsman Dilemma, the mystery of consciousness, and what it means to make ethical decisions when data alone isn't enough. From this podcast, our viewers learned with us the importance of ethics behind research and innovations. People also engaged in through our comments section, writing in detail their thoughts.

The time commitment to creating this episode was three hours on preliminary documents, such as the script, an hour and thirty minutes for setting up the shoot, and over an hour recording the episode. For the editing portion, over 13 hours were spent on this. In total, creating this podcast took 18.5 hours.

For future teams to reference, here is our draft script to guide our conversation:

Mayada Shahada – Math

This podcast episode featured a teacher who succeeds in teaching and engaging her students in math and makes difficult subjects seem easy. Our aim through this podcast was to understand her approach to education and her success in it. We wanted to learn the answers to questions such as what is the ideal learning environment for students to not get intimidated. Since synthetic biology is an innovative field, students might view it as difficult, so our podcast aimed at increasing the knowledge available for circumventing that. In the podcast, Dr. Shahada taught us her teaching style, alongside interesting mathematical facts. We learned about innovations in the math field and divided into her journey of finding her purpose in teaching. With our viewers, we expanded our knowledge on how to approach a mentorship position.

The preliminary documents for this podcast took around four hours to make. We spent around an hour setting up the shoot and an hour recording. The editing portion took a total of nine hours.

Hanan Bassyouni – Science, Women, and Healthcare

In this podcast, we had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Hanan Bassyouni. Dr. Bassyouni is an endocrinologist and clinical associate professor at the Cummings School of Medicine. She’s an award-winning professor, recipient of the 2024 Cumming School of Medicine Alumni of Distinction Award, and dedicates her personal time to helping her students, patients, and the general public. Our goal with this podcast was to understand the challenges that come with being a minority, such as a woman, in a challenging field. This topic holds significance because it can be a major deterrent for certain populations from pursuing certain careers. With our conversation, we learned the specific struggles faced as a minority and how Dr. Bassyouni overcame them while maintaining her generous and kind composure. She exemplified kindness and generosity, making her a role model as a woman in a challenging career. We also delved into her specialty — endocrinology.

We spent around two hours and thirty minutes making the initial documents for this podcast. For setting up the set, we took around an hour and thirty minutes. The recording time was two hours long, and the editing time took six hours.

For future teams to reference, here is our draft script to guide our conversation:

Steve Allan – Economics and Science

This podcast featured an active member of the community who has utilized their economic skills in promoting youth engagement and supporting them — Steve Allan. Steve Allan has dedicated much of his career to public service and innovation, earning awards such as Calgary’s “Citizen of the Year” in 2006 and being appointed to the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2017. We talked with him about how to promote students pursuing science and how that ties into literacy rates. To support and enable more people to shape, contribute, and participate in synthetic biology, they need to be supported while they are young. We delved into how to do that and the effects Mr. Allan has seen on increasing literacy rates. We also talked about the community and problems around it, such as wildfires and misconceptions with the oil industry. One problem we faced as a team pursuing synthetic biology was what problem we could tackle with our project. By exploring local problems, this podcast provides future teams with more knowledge on what problems are currently present that need tackling.

Planning this podcast took five hours, and an additional hour and thirty minutes were spent setting up and recording it. Editing the podcast took eight hours.

Brij Karmur – Circuits and Neuroscience

This podcast episode featured a neurosurgery resident — Dr. Brij Karmur. Dr. Brij Karmur is a neurosurgery resident at the University of Calgary and is also doing a PhD in epidemiology. He offered us and our viewers an insider’s view into what it really means to train as a neurosurgeon today and where the future of healthcare might be headed. This podcast promoted interdisciplinary dialogue between synthetic biology and clinical neuroscience. Through our interview, we explored how scientific innovation and medical practice intersect, helping listeners, particularly students, understand the real-world impact of biology in healthcare.

By highlighting Dr. Karmur’s experiences and perspectives, the episode makes advanced scientific careers more approachable and encourages broader participation in the field. Through the conversation, we learned a deeper appreciation for synthetic biology’s relevance beyond the lab and its impact on differing fields.

The pre-planning for this podcast took three hours and thirty minutes. The recording took three hours, and the editing took eight hours.

Dr. Kristin Baetz – The Dean of Science

In this podcast, we hosted the Dean of Science at the University of Calgary — Dr. Kristin Baetz. She plays a very important role in students' science education, including being in charge of labs and other facilities needed to pursue synthetic biology. This podcast delved into how universities play a pivotal role in supporting students pursuing synthetic biology. From lab space to resources, we talked with the Dean about how the University of Calgary supports teams like us and what students should look for when choosing a university.

The planning of the podcast took an hour and twenty minutes. For setup, that was around thirty minutes, and recording this podcast took forty minutes.

Publishing Schedule

We published a podcast once a week starting July 15, 2025. Our team also created YouTube and Instagram shorts to better engage the audience.

Across the podcast recordings and shorts, we got 16, 654 views and counting! Our podcast recordings are listed under our iGEM YouTube channel (@igemcalgary)

Conculsion

We found podcasts to be a great way to reach a broad audience. The guests shared insights into complex fields and added to the available free resources that the community can use to increase engagement with synthetic biology. Through our seven podcasts, we reached 16,000+ people and increased community engagement in our comment sections, where we saw detailed engagement from multiple viewers. We also introduced a new level of quality of podcasts to the iGEM community through the high-quality videography and editing our team performed. By our well-documented approach, we detailed the time taken to execute this initiative and provided guidelines through our scripts for future teams to reference. Podcasts are an easy-to-access resource for the public, lessening the barrier of entry into science. Through our podcast, we helped expose more people to synthetic biology and hope the episodes continue to spark more conversations long-past our time working on this project.

SCHOOL VISITS

We decided to continue the tradition that our past iterations of iGEM teams have done by hosting school workshops. The aim of these was to expose students to the fun of synthetic biology. To do so, we initially hosted a meeting to plan our approach and goal, focusing on our aim to increase student engagement and interest in synthetic biology. We then split up the tasks for our first school visit to Joane Cardinal-Schubert High School.

Joane Cardinal-Schubert High School

For this school visit, we created a slideshow deck and created the materials the students would use. This included strings with beads that represented DNA. In our presentation we also made a skit to increase student engagement. Throughout the workshop we introduced students to synthetic biology and explained iGEM. We made it interactive by asking students to answer what they initially thought of the words, “synthetic biology”. Their results are shown below. We also engaged them by asking what they thought made a good research question. This increased student engagement and participation. This workshop was centered around a theme of a virus outbreak. We dressed one of our teammates up as the scientist behind this disease. Just like in the dramas, before he solved the outbreak, he caught the disease! In our skit, our teammate dramatically fainted before the classroom before being dragged out. This got a few laughs.

Before he could no longer continue his work, he explained to the students key concepts they needed to solve the problem. The students were then tasked by the FBI to solve the disease as they were Humanity’s Last Stronghold. We brought in the beaded strings that represented DNA and had the students walk through the steps of transcribing, translating, and finding the mutated segment of the protein. The students had a lot of fun with this and were able to complete the workshop within class time. Afterwards, we asked them what they now thought of synthetic biology. Here were their results:

For future teams to reference, here is the slidedeck for our workshop:

John G. Diefenbaker High School

The next school we got the opportunity to host a workshop at was a class of grade 12 students. Since our previous workshop was for a younger grade, we needed to adapt our zombie apocalypse workshop to be an adequate challenge for this group. As such, we introduced PCR and had the students figure out which nucleotide corresponded with which color bead. This added an additional challenge as the previous time, we gave them the corresponding colours. We also tracked the students engaged though a similar question method as our last school visit. We also made a Booklet for them that consisted of reviews from our slide deck. The group was highly engaged and gave positive feedback.

Here is the slide deck for future teams to reference:

Tom Baines Middle School

Lastly, we presented to eight different middle school classes, covering a total of twelve class periods.

Since the grade level was different, we pivoted our workshop content. We still prioritized student engagement so we made a, “Who is the father?” style activity. The students had to determine who was the billionaire’s real son using punnet squares and PCR. We taught them both techniques in the workshop. We also played another Booklet with them. The students had a lot of fun with it! We also presented the zombie apocalypse workshop to some classes.

Afterwards, some students had questions on career paths so we sat down with them and talked about options available to them. We were able to share the fascination with synthetic biology with these kids and help provide them information about planning their future paths down fields like this.

Here is the slide deck for future teams to reference:

Impact and Feedback

These visits allowed us to directly connect with local communities in-person. We were able to present synthetic biology to 200 students in an engaging manner, allowing them to gain exposure to synthetic biology and the possible paths available to them. The teachers and students gave us feedback on our workshops. They informed us about the parts of our workshop they found most valuable. Some of the answers included that they appreciated the opportunity to apply concepts to a real-world scenario, the applications discussion we had with them, and the fun we incorporated into the workshop. After each one of our workshops, we also gathered feedback from the participants to also help us improve for our next presentation. Some critical feedback we worked on improving was our acting skills and speaking louder. All of the participants who provided feedback thought the level of material we taught was appropriate for the audience, and they also rated the presentation as excellent.