pub_out_khg

=Bioinformatics at Kurt-Huber-Gymnasium=

Summary:
Soumya, Vedran and Fabian went to the German high-school [|Kurt-Huber-Gymnasium (KHG)] in [|Gräfelfing], near [|Munich]. Together with two biology teachers they organized three 90-minutes sessions where they gave presentations and exercises to ~75 pupils of the 11th grade biology classes. In addition, mini-projects were realized, were students visited the ESRs at the university and got an insight into the life of a scientist.

Topics
Following topics were covered in the presentations:
 * Bioinformatics in general
 * Science funding by the European Research Council (ERC)
 * INTERCROSSING
 * Marie-Curie Actions
 * Studying Bioinformatics
 * Being a scientist
 * How does a scientific career look like?
 * Three ESR projects


 * [[image:P1010619.JPG width="389" height="297" align="left" caption="Soumya explains about ERC funding."]] || [[image:P1010617_2.JPG width="417" height="287" align="left" caption="Fabian gives support during one of the exercises."]] || [[image:P1010628_3.JPG width="279" height="364" align="left" caption="Vedran explains about the general idea of genomes and genes."]] ||

Exercises

 * Sequence alignment: [[file:exercise_alignment.pdf]]
 * Calculating F ST
 * Linkage mapping: (see Sequence alignment file)
 * Haplotyping: [[file:Exercise_haplotyping.pdf]]

Projects
Students with further interest in bioinformatics were invited to do a phylogeny project with the ESRs. The ESRs prepared two different projects and split the pupils into groups.

Group 1:
This group was led by Fabian and worked on phylogeny in primates. Five datasets were used to compare the evolutionary relationships of ten different species at different loci. We invited the students to the university, after they had finished the project tasks. We discussed the results and gave them an insight into university life.

Group 2:
This group was led by Soumya and Vedran.

Summary
We asked the students to fill in feedback forms in order to measure the impact of our public outreach action. The great majority (96%) evaluated our visit as a positive experience. Although the prior knowledge was limited to very basic genetic principles, most of the students were able to understand the general concept of each of the three PhD projects. We raised awareness of bioinformatics itself and its importance for the society. Further, we were able to communicate how the ERC is funding science and training activities and why this is important.

Questions:

 * 1) Do you approve research funding and training of scientists by the ERC?
 * 2) Is bioinformatics important for our society?
 * 3) Are you interested in becoming a scientist?
 * 4) Do you consider studying bioinformatics, biology or a related field?

First class:
From the first class we received 25 valid feeback forms. None of the students had heard about bioinformatics or ERC-funded research before.
 * **Question** || **Yes/Maybe** || **No** || **NA** ||
 * 1 || 16 || 0 || 9 ||
 * 2 || 25 || 0 || 0 ||
 * 3 || 8 || 15 || 2 ||
 * 4 || 8 || 14 || 3 ||

Second class:
From the second class we received 25 valid feeback forms. None of the students had heard about ERC-funded research before. Two have heard the term bioinformatics, but were not sure what it is. Four of the students that gave a positive reply to question 4, pointed out that they are rather interested in medicine, because it is less theoretical.
 * **Question** || **Yes/Maybe** || **No** || **NA** ||
 * 1 || 24 || 0 || 1 ||
 * 2 || 25 || 0 || 0 ||
 * 3 || 6 || 18 || 1 ||
 * 4 || 11 || 14 || 0 ||

Third class:
From the third class we received 25 valid feeback forms. None of the students had heard about bioinformatics or ERC-funded research before. Three of the students that gave a positive reply to question 4, pointed out that they are rather interested in medicine.
 * **Question** || **Yes/Maybe** || **No** || **NA** ||
 * 1 || 25 || 0 || 0 ||
 * 2 || 25 || 0 || 0 ||
 * 3 || 13 || 12 || 0 ||
 * 4 || 14 || 11 || 0 ||