Team:REC-CHENNAI/Public-Engagement-HP
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
As a team, we realized that too often the progress of Science particularly advances in the field of Synthetic Biology and Biotechnology never translated to the community they hope to benefit. In hopes of bridging this gap, we decided to host an event that will inform the community of the concepts in Science and will also answer the questions they had already. We wanted to address the possible misconceptions held at the same time engage them in activities that would be fun for people of all age groups.
We wanted to engage people from different walks of life. We hosted this event in Edwards Elliot’s Beach, Besant Nagar, Chennai, in the early hours of Sunday morning frequented by various demographics and age groups. We were able to engage kids and adults alike. We even took to our regional languages to be able to get them to understand better.
The Lock and Key Hypothesis of enzyme model, an important concept that explains how enzymes and substrates work together was explained through an interactive game where we had several locks and their keys. The participants were needed to find the exact pair. This explains how enzymes and substrates work and about specificity.
Understanding the basics of Genetics and DNA. We came up with a wrap-around game to demonstrate the winding on DNA around Histone proteins. The participants were asked to wind thread around pebbles to understand the role histone plays in the conformation of DNA present in the cells.
We wanted everyone to understand the importance of base pairing is as important as teamwork. We split the audience into 2 teams and we gave them each a nucleotide base. The importance of base pairing and their names were explained, along with how they make up our DNA. They were to pair up with the respective base and form a proper nucleotide sequence.
We had different committees to explain a specific aspect of Science to explain the reason behind the commonly held notion. We wanted to emphasize on the importance of Science in our daily lives and how we might have overlooked them.
We also spoke to them about the advances in Recombinant DNA technology and this is how we are able to produce insulin. We also explained about the principle and mechanism behind the biosensors- PregaKit used to detect pregnancy, glucometric watches.
We learn more from TV and movies more than textbooks, and this sometimes popularises false ideas or possibilities in Science. We thought it would be right to explain that some of those ideas portrayed aren’t as easy as it seems.
We thought being able to see the things we were explaining would get more people interested in what we do. We were able to demonstrate some experiments to showcase that working in Science can be fun. This includes extraction of DNA from different sources- saliva from viewers, fruits like banana, strawberries and papaya. A DIY microscope was set up to show them just what we were talking about.
Following the collaborative efforts with CLS, we wanted to see how the board game would fair with the children they were meant for. We also wanted to interact with the parents to understand their perspective on Synthetic Biology and their children pursuing Science.
With our goals in mind, we thought the best place to interact with our target group would be a park frequented by families. We conducted our event in Natesan Park, Chennai on a Sunday afternoon. We met with children right from nursery to secondary school. Their parents were equally interested in the whole idea of our event.
Our primary goal was to make people of all age groups play our board games to know what their thoughts were. We had people play our board game called, “ Microwar”. We used this opportunity to explain microorganisms and their function and how the entire game is based on their interaction with human hosts and each other. Children from Nursery to Secondary school along with their parents took part in our game session. We were able to explain all the features to them in simple terms.
Continuing with the theme of microorganisms, we had a foldscope viewing session to talk about the things that aren’t visible to the naked eye.
We also took this chance to interact with the parents, the extent of their awareness about Synthetic Biology and we also spoke to them about the iGEM competition is open to the high school students and the opportunities that lie here.
Engineers are essential for the advances in Science and we wanted to understand how important safety is inside and outside of the laboratory facilities. We were inspired by the considerations from the safety committee. We wanted to ensure that future engineers realised the responsibility they have for their own safety and people who work with them.
We found our potential target audience in our own backyard. We invited students and faculty members from our college belonging to various departments. Ensuring that students would understand the necessity for safety especially for those working in the Biological field.
Fire extinguishers are installed everywhere but how many of us know how to handle one. This question helped us realise the need to teach students to use one. We had a detailed session to teach the students how to handle an extinguisher that needs to be installed in any science laboratory is the fire extinguisher. One of our events was demonstrating the use of fire extinguishers at times of emergency. The handling of the extinguisher was carefully explained to the attendees.
We demonstrated the importance of protecting your eyes when working through an experiment what corrosive and hazardous chemicals could do to one’s eyes. We emphasized that the use of safety goggles would help avert such incidents and ensure your safety while working. We used the egg white rich in albumin to mimic the damage done to the cornea by acids.
This was a simple board game created to explain the effects of bacteria, water, flame and ethanol with each other. The player gains a point if he gets a favourable attack on the opponent (say, bacteria has favourable conditions when living in water bodies whereas flames are unfavourable conditions for the microbe).
Disposal of wastes correctly is also essential to ensure safety to everyone and the environment. Knowing the correct bins to dispose of them properly was explained.
Symbols could save lives! Would you be able to any of these symbols if they were given? The participants were tested to see how many they can name correctly in a minute.
Can reach the level of Biosafety necessary? We explained the concept of biosafety and why there is a need for different levels of it. This game was designed to showcase why having the required safety measures are needed when working with infectious organisms. The participants were asked to aim for the safety level needed for the organisms we mentioned and whether they were right made it an interesting game.
Working with chemicals becomes routine for scientists but understanding which of those can be dangerous and knowing how to storing and handling them appropriately would diminish the risk. We designed this game to stress on the importance of knowing what you work with.
