Experiential Engineering Through iGEM—An Undergraduate Summer Competition in Synthetic Biology Rudolph Mitchell • Yehudit Judy Dori • Natalie H. Kuldell Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010 Abstract Unlike students in other engineering disci- plines, undergraduates in biological engineering typically have limited opportunity to develop design competencies, and even fewer chances to implement their designed pro- jects. The international Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition is a student Synthetic Biology com- petition that, in 2009, included 110 teams from across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the US. Working at their own schools over the summer, the students use a kit of bio- logical parts from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, as well as new parts of their own design, to build biological systems that operate in living cells. Two years of survey data collected from undergraduates after their iGEM experiences in 2007 and 2008 suggest that both learning and identity as a biological engineer increase as a result of iGEM. Keywords Synthetic biology Á Design competition Á Experiential learning Á Thinking skills Á Career goals Introduction As colleges and universities consider ways to enrich stu- dent learning, recent attention has focused on team-based design experiences (Dori 2007). These collaborative pro- jects require that students apply and extend their classroom learning to meet a tangible goal. Motivated by a genuine problem to solve, students learn in lasting and satisfy- ing ways (Moore et al. 1994). Project-based educational approaches in science and engineering take many forms. Laboratory experiences for students in the sciences teach both the mechanics of scientific investigation, such as how to assemble chemical reactions or how to culture cells, as well as frameworks for inquiry. Engineering competitions, such as FIRST robotics, develop problem solving-skills as well as system-level thinking even in very young students (http://www.usfirst.org/who/content.aspx?id=46). Using an object, artifact or challenge to frame the students’ work and learning unifies all of these intellectually rich learning experiences in science and engineering. For biological engineering, however, it is rare to find ‘‘design and build’’ opportunities, despite the widespread appreciation that such learning experiences offer students a valuable opportunity to engage in authentic practices of professional biological engineers (Thomas 2000). The international Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition is a project-based research experience in which teams of undergraduates with different interests and backgrounds learn biological engineering by engaging in the relatively new field of synthetic biology (http:// 2009.igem.org/Main_Page). From its roots as a four week Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10956-010-9242-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. R. Mitchell Teaching and Learning Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA Y. J. Dori Division of Continuing Education and External Studies, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, 32000 Haifa, Israel Y. J. Dori Center for Educational Computing Initiatives, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA N. H. Kuldell (&) Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA e-mail: nkuldell@mit.edu 123 J Sci Educ Technol DOI 10.1007/s10956-010-9242-7