Engineer a Living Cell: A Hands-On Synthetic Biology Lab for Teens

Scientists can reprogram living things. Over two Saturday mornings, you will too. This class is a hands-on synthetic biology lab for curious 13-16 year olds. No experience needed. In this class, you'll insert new DNA into living bacteria, grow your own engineered cells, and use the same tools professional biologists rely on every day. By the end you won't just know how genetic engineering works. You'll have done it yourself, and turned the result into a piece of living art. **The details** * Two Saturdays: August 22 & August 29 * 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM both days * One ticket covers both sessions * Ages 12-16, no prior experience required Reserve your spot for both Saturdays. **Session 1: Build & Transform (August 22)** You'll start by getting oriented: what synthetic biology and biohacking actually mean, and how to move safely around a real lab. Then comes the main event: a bacterial transformation, where you physically insert new DNA into living cells. It's the same core technique behind most modern biotech. Once your cells have new DNA in them, you'll culture them using genuine lab methods and set them up to incubate so they're ready to show results the following week. **Session 2: See & Create (August 29)** Come back to see what your bacteria did over the week. In this class you'll get hands-on with a micropipette, the tool every biologist uses constantly, and learn to read and interpret your own experimental results. From there you'll make liquid cultures from your transformed bacteria and use them to create a piece of living art out of your own genetically modified organism.