The last two decades have seen vigorous activity in synthetic biology research and ever-increasing applications of synthetic biology technologies. However, pedagogical research on synthetic biology is scarce, especially when compared to some scientific and engineering disciplines. Within Canada, there are only three universities that formally teach synthetic biology programs; two of which are at the undergraduate level. Many Canadian undergraduate students are instead introduced to synthetic biology through participation in the annual International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition where they work in design teams to conceive of and execute a synthetic biology project that they present at an international jamboree. We surveyed the Canadian landscape of synthetic biology education through the experience of students from the Canadian iGEM teams of 2019. Using a thematic codebook analysis, we gathered insights to generate recommendations that could empower future iGEM team operations and inform educators about best practices in teaching undergraduate synthetic biology.

中文翻译：

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本科生合成生物学培训中的挑战：加拿大iGEM学生观点的见解

在过去的二十年中，合成生物学研究活跃起来，合成生物学技术的应用也在不断增加。但是，关于合成生物学的教学研究很少，特别是与某些科学和工程学科相比时。在加拿大，只有三所大学正式教授合成生物学课程。其中两个是本科生。相反，通过参加年度国际基因工程机器（iGEM）竞赛，许多加拿大本科生被引入合成生物学领域，他们在设计团队中工作，以构思和执行他们在国际大奖赛上提出的合成生物学项目。