iXG has been involved with a number of educational outreach activities with the HudsonAlpha Institute of Biotechnology (HAIB), the Alabama Space Grant Consortium, the local community and the state of Alabama. The students and the faculty members at UAHuntsville with iXG have been organizing existing and new educational outreach programs to reach children as young as early elementary school and progressing though undergraduate training in biotechnology. In particular, UAHuntsville and HAIB have been coordinating various professional development opportunities for teachers including professional degrees conferred by the participating Universities. Our partnerships with the educational organizations described below will allow us to leverage several education components so that we're able to extend the impact of biotechnology to many recipients in Alabama.
K-12 student and teacher outreach: Within the frame of the research mission, the iXG has been engaged in intensive K-12 and teacher outreach programs with student workshops and training in structural biology. As an example, we had coupled space flight opportunities with protein crystal growth carrying student samples to the International Space Station. Others include topics in functional genomics and synthetic biology.
iXG is supporting students and high school teacher education programs in offering research, internship opportunities, practical workshops and lecture by our senior staff members in SynBio. Only recently has iXG outreach program started providing theoretical instructions in SynBio in collaboration with the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Practical courses are planned to be offered in the near future.