Hands-On Biology Lab Skills at Home: Real world project

Hands-On Biology Lab Skills at Home: Real world project

This short course is about real hands-on practical skill building in the area of biology, biochemistry and specifically, genetic engineering. This course is a first of its kind and offers a way for you the learner to do a real world project at home or school. Practical skills are key to success, however, in the world of online or school learning it is difficult to learn practical lab skills. In fact, typically one has to wait until university. 

This short course includes some basic computer based pre-assignments for learning about DNA and genetic engineering. The bulk of the course includes you the student doing real hands on genetic engineering of bacteria. Making "plates", streaking bacteria, and ultimately engineering those bacteria with DNA - all in a few hours over three days. To complete this course, you must get an Engineer-it Kit from Amino Labs. This can be found at www.amino.bio.

The real world skills picked up in this course will anchor and bring context to what you've learned in class or online. Moreover, this is a learn-by-doing course, so the practical skills you'll gain through doing this exercise will enrich your current and future education in biology. In addition to the hands-on skills, throughout the course, some scientific jargon used in labs is clarified, so that if you do decide to pursue a career in science, or become friends with scientists, you'll wow them with some casual lab language.

If you're tired of biology class and material being all about memorization, this course is for you! At the end of the course, you will be able to say you are a novice genetic engineer.

Biohacking is becoming a more popular subject. By taking this course and doing it at home, you will get an idea of what Biohacking is because you'll be doing the course in an unconventional environment.

Time commitment: The pre-assignments take about 1 hour to complete. For the hands-on exercise, be prepared to block off between one and three hours each day over three consecutive days.

Budget: The budget needed to cover costs of the hands-on exercise will be within the range of $45 to $100 (for those in North America), and depends on what you already have around your house or school.

What this course is not: This course is not a comprehensive biology course, so do not expect too much theoretical knowledge - this course provides you with relevant information in real-time during the hands-on exercise. This is not a study guide for a test, however, doing the hands-on exercise while studying can help you to remember related information and principles that you've been tasked to memorize.

Learn real biohacking skills through growing and genetic engineering cells at home or at school.

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What you will learn

• You will have real world experience in growing bacteria, and engineering them with DNA.

Rating: 4.2

Level: All Levels

Duration: 3 hours

Instructor: Justin Pahara