Team:Montpellier/Public Engagement
EDUCATION AND PUBLIC ENGAGMENT
Popularizing science with the general public is an essential matter. It is indeed important to try to inform people on current scientific issues and give them the necessary tools for a basic understanding of the different themes. However, finding an interesting and interactive mediation support is quite complicated, especially when trying to communicate with younger generations and in situations or places not dedicated to this type of intervention.
Our idea was to find a way to do scientific mediation in our region through an unconventional means and apart from dedicated events in order to bring scientific culture to remote places. We were delighted to discover the Carascience. A professor from our University, Boris Chenaud, renovated a few years ago a small caravan in order to have a suitable environment to organize meetings between the public and researchers in mediation events and schools. Renamed Carascience, it allows people to meet in an intimate setting and ask their questions about science with specialized scientists in 15-minutes slots.
Seeing the potential of such mediation, we discussed with Mr. Chenaud who lent us the Carascience from June till August 2019 in order to launch our Cara-tour project.
Caratour Project:
Our goal was to use the Carascience and what it represents to share our scientific knowledge and our adventure in the iGEM competition by carrying out a scientific mediation tour in our region. We took the caravan to village squares, festivals, markets, zoo... every weekend during the summer. Our presence with Carascience was intended to arouse the curiosity of passers-by and give them the opportunity to ask questions on scientific subjects that might interest them, in an original setting close to the researcher or student responsible for answering the questions of the curious public. So we went to the Festival "Land of Convergence" in remote Cévennes, to Lézan, to the market of Castelnau-le-Lez, to the zoo of Montpellier, to parks Méric among others…
The topics we covered in Carascience were adapted to the questions of the public. In general, these focused on current topics: global warming, vaccines, antibiotic resistance, space, cancer, genetics... We also took the opportunity to talk about synthetic biology and to introduce the iGEM competition and our KARMA project and thus got the public's opinion directly on these topics.
The objective was also to be able to adapt our speech according to the audience: to provide playful explanations to the youngests, to discuss current issues with adults... while focusing on the educational aspect of the project.
For the youngest:
The most difficult audience to captivate and yet the most interesting in terms of impact is the young audience. In order to arouse their scientific curiosity to make the meeting more interactive and memorable, we proposed small experiments and provided microscopes accompanied by sections of animal or plant tissue to be observed under the explanations of the facilitator.
Science festival
The Science Festival is a major scientific mediation event that takes place in all major cities of France every year. Many exhibitions, conferences, workshops… are proposed and gathered in a “Science Village” during the first week of October. This year we participated with an exhibition and an escape game.
”The superpowers of microorganisms” exhibition about the incredible powers and abilities of the microorganisms around us:
A great power implies great responsibilities? They live all around us, and even within us, are invisible to the naked eye and yet some of them have powers worthy of the greatest superheroes? This is the theme of the exhibition we proposed at the 2019 Science Festival in Montpellier.
We invited the public to come and discover the world of super microorganisms, from extremophiles, tardigrades or bacteria that can survive extreme temperatures, radiation, and withstand incredible pressures. Through this exhibition, we were able to communicate with both young people and their parents about the microscopic world of bacteria and allow them to discover the incredible abilities that some bacteria possess. By drawing parallels with superheroes we have found a good way to reach young audiences in a more meaningful way.
It also allowed us to discuss synthetic biology with younger people as well as adults and talk about iGEM by showing how to take the superpower of one organism (example of GFP) and give it to another organism like bacteria.
After explaining to the children what bacteria are and how they are given the PFM gene through exposure, we had them do a bacterial painting workshop with E. coli producing GFP and RFP. Besides this workshop, we also explained to the children what DNA was by making them build DNA models with pipe cleaners and beads, which they could take home afterwards... This exhibition was a great success, the children were very receptive thanks to the idea of explaining all these principles to them with the super heroes.
Escape game
In honour of the 80th anniversary of the CNRS and in collaboration with researchers from various labs in Montpellier and FBI ( France BioImaging ), we were able to put together an escape game mainly focusing on scientific experiments in different fields (biochemistry, bioinformatics, microbiology, microscopy…). The idea was to attribute to every participant a certain scientific expertise.
Course of the game:
We first took 15 minutes to brief the game and teach players how to use a pipette. Then the players are led into the room once it's ready.
They had 45 minutes in the room to solve the enigmas and to get out. They were welcomed by 2 game assistants, on one side optical table, and the other side biological bench. The leaders staid in the room and sometimes helped the players in case they were blocked.
Afterwards, at the end of the game, there was a time for debriefing. The leader of the game would take the players out with the tube containing the antidote they prepared and would guide them to the conference room. The antidote was mixed with water and drank by the players. The leader would then debrief with a slideshow explaining the optical or biological concepts behind some of the enigma resolved during the escape game. There was also plenty of time for questions.
Meanwhile the assistants were putting things back in place to let the next group in the room.
Synopsis
A terrorist commando broke into the CBS to kidnap a researcher in synthetic biology who had just succeeded in producing a highly effective vaccine against a highly pathogenic microbe. There is a great risk of the microbe being in the hands of fanatics who want to use it to trigger a global pandemic. In addition, while trying to defend himself, the researcher spilt a vial that may have contaminated the room where you were locked by the commando. You must, therefore, leave the room as soon as possible and prepare the antidote that you will have to absorb to avoid any risk of spreading the pathogen. To make matters worse, an optical thesis student during a long night of data acquisition in the room had fun hiding the duplicate key and devised riddles to find it.
