Team:Guelph/Public Engagement
During iGEM Guelph's third year, we wanted to move beyond the intensive work done in our research lab and expand the scope of who our science can reach and create a lasting impact. Our goal was to create a significant framework of diverse outreach avenues that iGEM Guelph can use both now and in future years to establish and sustain dialogues with key stakeholders. We hope to create conversation surrounding complex issues impacting synthetic biology and society. As a team we undertook many ways of trying to conduct what we considered responsible outreach in an attempt to educate and inform the public about fact-based arguments surrounding these synbio issues. iGEM Guelph was able to achieve this goal by utilizing a variety of outlets that allowed not only the team grow as scientific communicators but also informing people in our local and regional communities.
When thinking of ways to engage the public, it was very obvious to our team last year that we should start looking at the ‘public’ that surrounds us, namely other students at our university. Being influenced by the great example that iGEM Western set at integrating their team into their university, last year we were inspired to establish the Guelph Synthetic Biology Club as a part of our team. Not only has this club grown into a powerful recruitment tool and source of funding for iGEM Guelph, we’ve also been able to use it as a means of connecting with fellow students outside of our lab work and human policy and practices activities. This club allowed the engagement of students and community members outside of the synthetic biology field, and even outside of the sciences, in synthetic biology.
Taking the feedback and interest from our Guelph Synthetic Biology Club, we thought that an important stakeholder that has not been reached before by the team are children. iGEM Guelph values their position in society, especially given the influence they can potentially have if they’re exposed to science at an early age. This idea materialized with the help of iGEM Guelph Team member Eleanor Cloves wanting to help educate the children of the Guelph community through the popular science-based camp ‘STEM Camp Guelph’.
For this task, we first had to decide what the fundamentals of synthetic biology are and we decided that integral aspects were the Design-Build-Test-Learn (DBTL) cycle, critical thinking and a desire to create. This allowed us to go back to the basis and think about how we can teach the children skills that are important in synthetic biology rather than techniques that are important. For this, we would love to highlight two activities that are great for children 5-7 years old. Here we have our ‘Help Bumblebee Defend Against Evil!’ and our ‘Life Saving Potion!’ activity. Help Bumblebee taught the DBTL cycle through building stronger barricades. Life Saving Potion taught them critical thinking via assessing states of matter (which they were already familiar with) and instead of just ice and water, we gave them a foreign concept (potassium nitrate and hot water) and made them think critically about a ‘new’ phenomenon (KNO3 changing states) that they already possessed the background to understand.
Overall this Outreach was an excellent fit for iGEM Guelph as not only did we get to have a successful partnership with an organization in our city, but we also genuinely learnt about how to communicate and teach others relevant aspects of synthetic biology that are not always technique-based. iGEM Guelph believes that we demonstrated that we can make a positive difference in how science is viewed by children. While working in STEM Camp, the volunteers promoted experiential learning to build positive connotations with science for all the campers
The iGEM Guelph x STEM Camp Guelph partnership was a big success. Children frequently commented that they enjoyed their time at STEM Camp Guelph and when reviewed at the end of the week, the majority of campers relayed that they enjoyed and recalled the contributions of iGEM Guelph and Synthetic Biology to their camp experience. We also asked parents of the campers for feedback and they were very happy with the expansion that we created. Finally, STEM Camp followed up and thanked us for our contributions to their programs at the end of the summer. We were able to send them all of our activities and have them consider expanding activities that highlight synthetic biology to other locations for next summer. Our members also felt like they gained a lot from the experience. Doing community service to expand the knowledge was very gratifying to the volunteers.
Beyond our experiences with reaching University of Guelph students with our club and the next generation in Guelph, we realized that our efforts were restricted to our local community. We wanted to find avenues to increase the visibility of not only our work, but our teaching values. We learned from 1) Our club, that students outside of biology want synthetic biology to be more accessible and 2) Our camp, that we should focus on skills in the field rather than techniques. We then created these two platforms to try to reach adults and discuss these two aspects in media forms that were wide enough to catch the attention of as many people as possible.
Podcasting is a form of media that allows specialists in any field to share high-end research in a format that is accessible for anyone with access to the internet. We created the podcast to reach as wide of an audience as possible, especially given the rise of the formats in recent mainstream popularity. We saw the impact that communicating science had on the younger generation at our STEM summer camp and wanted to create something that could potentially reach people like their caregivers. We were inspired to create a form of media that would make this cutting-edge science more accessible and would better communicate the ethics behind synthetic biology-based work and highlight our research at iGEM Guelph. With this in mind, similar to our club, Behind the Science was created.
The iGEM blog, The Micron , focused on opening the small scope of iGEM Guelph to the scientific world. This platform allowed team members to write about current scientific advancements, reflect on conferences they attended and to think about the societal applications of their current research projects. The most popular article this year was the research spotlight on Dr. Rebecca Shapiro, which had an interesting perspective on her current research in the field of fungal genetics. Other popular articles have included a reflection on the Canadian Synthetic Biology 2019 conference, the current value of CRISPR and reflections on iGEM 101 training. These articles are all available to the scientific community and the public, and have allowed for a greater connection between the iGEM Guelph team and the surrounding community. Often when we post these articles and tweet about them, other iGEM teams reply and spark discussions based on these posts. While not directly a collaboration these threads created a space for open dialogue between the team and the public and allowed us to expand further on the concepts we started to explore.
The LGBTSTEM Day is a day to recognize members of the LGBTQ+ community who also work in the STEM field. iGEM Guelph wanted to prioritize supporting this event to encourage inclusivity in a field that can be intimidating for many to approach. What makes STEM such a powerful field, is that it a result of brilliance of intelligent minds working together to solve problems, no matter how they may differ. This year, the iGEM Guelph team put together small cards outlining the importance of the day, and attached one of three pins with a rainbow/science theme. On July 5th, members went around the campus handing out these pins and cards to Guelph’s students and faculty, and talked to them about diversity and inclusion in STEM. This was a great opportunity for iGEM Guelph to promote our project and to encourage participation in synthetic biology.
Social media is becoming a main stepping stone to help organizations reach a wider audience. To communicate what iGEM Guelph has been up to this past year, we created a social media subcommittee to create our Lab Twitter Pageand Lab Instagram Pagethat revolved around connecting us to other iGEM teams and providing us with an outlet for the easy distribution of our podcasts and blog posts.
Human Practices:
Education and Public Engagement
Special Prize
Starting at Home: Guelph Synthetic Biology Club
The club runs all year-round and this year we hosted many events to both educate students and to create an accessible space where students at the university that are not associated with our team can participate in and interact with in synthetic biology. We have events such as “What is Synthetic Biology and How to Get Involved" were hosted where the community could come out and learn more about synthetic biology with a focus on how everyone can take part in iGEM. We have hosted weekly club room times where anyone could come out and learn about recent research in synthetic biology. This would be a relaxed environment for people to either bring their own topics or ask us questions and talk to us about the field. Other events that have been run are resume building workshops, “How to Land a Job in a Research Lab" and social events for students on campus. Importantly, we also held a journal club, Behind the Science, that had senior iGEM Guelph team members selecting interesting introductory discoveries and inventions in the field of synthetic biology and creating a space to discuss them every other week. Through this, students reported that they gained critical thinking and problem-solving skills while working through synthetic biology research articles and one student even had the confidence to join a lab through coming to our sessions! Hosting Behind the Science also allowed us to widen our perspective on how we interpret research by working with and answering the questions of students outside of the synthetic biology field. We also did outreach targeting the greater Guelph community with events presenting both novel concepts and the impact of synthetic biology to encourage people to get involved. These talk shops and open question presentations created two-way dialogue between the general public and scientists on what synthetic biology means to them and us. This was an amazing opportunity for us to learn about public concerns regarding synthetic biology and genetic engineering while educating the public on the science behind synthetic biology. Both at the public and team level, both groups at these events learnt about others’ perspectives and opinions, helping reshape their own views regarding synthetic biology. This also helps us as an iGEM team keep in perspective what people think about our research and ensure that the community is involved at every step as majority of sentiments echoed is that our science is not explained clearly or accessible enough. The club has been a great outlet for us to continue community outreach and education throughout the year in efforts to create a more accessible and knowledgeable synthetic biology community.
Walking Around our Neighbourhood: iGEM & STEM SUMMER CAMP
STEM Camp is a Canadian organization dedicated to teaching kids from a young age about how interesting and relevant science can be to their everyday lives. Campers aged 5-12 come to STEM Camp to broaden their horizons and learn real theories behind fun experiments. iGEM Guelph envisions a future where synthetic biology is integrated into everyday tools and activities. As this is something that comes with the normalization of these disruptive biological-technologies, it will take time. This is why we identified children as relevant stakeholders in the application of synthetic biology as they will be instrumental in this normalization in the future. We then aimed to integrate synthetic biology into their curriculum as though STEM Camp is diverse, their curriculum currently did not include this important subject.
One of iGEM Guelph’s members (Eleanor Cloves) obtained a position as a camp director at Stem Camp Guelph. From here, she reached out to the STEM Camp head office to propose a partnership between STEM Camp Guelph and iGEM Guelph where we can create and add to their existing library of activities. The head office not only enthusiastically agreed, but wanted to be updated on the success of our work. We brainstormed many activities that are based on educating the campers about various avenues of synthetic biology. Activities ranged from traditional biology experiments such as DNA extractions and bacterial growth on different media types. iGEM Guelph volunteers then came to STEM Camp Guelph every week to help integrate synthetic biology into their curriculum. The children learned about fundamental concepts of cell biology and genetics while having interactive fun. However, based on the feedback from STEM Camp Guelph counsellors, these activities while exciting and informational did not differ from their biology programs substantially. These activities also while well received by older campers, did not resonate as well with the younger ones. This allowed iGEM Guelph to take a step back and assess what makes a good activity for young campers that can capture their attention, while teaching them about the fundamentals of synthetic biology.
More Than Just a Local Dialogue: Podcast and Blog
Creating a Podcast: BEHIND THE SCIENCE
Though in it’s preliminary stages, Behind the Science is a podcast put on by a section of iGEM Guelph that creates a space for open conversation and learning from experts in the field of synthetic biology. Ethics and science are becoming increasingly important as science and technology continue to evolve to meet the needs of researchers.
These podcasts, lead by our head Science Communicator, Sarah Pravato, featured team members ranging from a fifth year Microbiology and Genetics student, to a second year Engineering student and a third year Arts student. This podcast created a space to have open discussions that not only explored and informed public opinion on synthetic biology issues, but also highlighted gaps in the understanding of the general public. As an undergraduate-based research team, it is essential that as the new generation of scientists, we look at not only our work, but how we can communicate it in the broader worldview, and this is what the Behind the Science podcast is starting to do.
Forming a Blog: THE MICRON
Outreach: #LGBTSTEMday
Too often the LGBTQ+ community struggles with their mental health as a result of the stigma hidden in society about their identity. Creating and distributing these cards and pins allowed iGEM Guelph to facilitate community awareness and solidarity by encouraging people to wear pins. This created a community within campus that showcased their support and openness to discussing and encouraging all demographics to contribute to the field of STEM. Conversation brings community, and community is a common need among all humans. iGEM Guelph is incredibly proud to support LGBTQ+ participation in the STEM field! Reaching the Masses: Social Media Outreach
