Team:Ruperto Carola/Public Engagement

Education & Engagement

Biotechnology, synthetic biology, and genetic engineering are highly discussed topics in our community [1]. People are often ignorant of scientific research and afraid of anything related to biotechnology or its benefits. Therefore, we talked to different experts in science communication to have a better and more integrated approach on how to interact with people that are not directly involved in science. During these interviews, we learned that most of the people's problems with science, in general, come from the open public’s fear of the unknown and too little time or commitment of scientists to explain more about their research.

We wanted to tackle the problem at its root and decided to concentrate on the young generation and encourage them to be more open to science. However, before we set out to engage the public, we wanted to get some advice from science communication professionals. Two of our interviewees gave us advice on how to approach science communication and what to look out for. Dorothea Kaufman told us that schools often have problems with providing the materials and time to show young students what the practical implementation of genetic engineering looks like. Moreover, she advised us to go back to our former schools, talk about our studies, and thereby raise interest in young people for science. That's why we decided to visit schools and teach students about synthetic biology and its most recent approaches. To make this as easy to understand as possible, we used our project as an example of the great advantages that can be accomplished with science and biotechnology.

Following the advice given by Dr. Lorenz Adlung, we decided to do a short Q & A session with the students. This way, we learned about their hopes and fears related to biotechnology. We observed them carefully and collected feedback to improve our way of reaching out to other students. Also, we were very curious about their thoughts on our project. Dr. Adlung had recommended us to specifically speak to the youth since they would be expected to ask “basic questions.” These are obvious questions that are both most relevant to the grand public and researchers but possibly hard to think of from the perspective of a professional when dealing with the layman. “How do you bring the DNA into yeast?”, “How does the yeast know that it has to express the DNA you brought into it?” or “Can one isolate the receptor and look at it?” are questions that are not so different from the ones we asked ourselves during the project. That underlines Dr. Adlung’s statement that the curiosity of young people is fundamental and not much different from scientists’ questions.

Additionally, we conducted several experiments that we designed specifically for young students. This way, we gave them the chance to experience real lab work in their classroom. We made sure to choose simple but also vivid experiments to encourage further interest in scientific research. We wanted to get as much feedback as possible from the students to have a confirmation on whether we were successful with our mission. Therefore, we conducted a survey addressing different aspects of our lesson.

iGEM brings Synbio into High School

Previous Next

Motivating and inspiring the next generation of scientists was one of our main goals on our human practice agenda. We visited a high school class in their penultimate year at the Alosiuskolleg in Bonn to present our project and give insights into synthetic biology directly to the students. In the months before our visit, the students were introduced to molecular biology, so our goal was to deepen that knowledge in theory and praxis. The theoretical introduction implemented a keynote about our iGEM project and profound discussions about diverse SynBio topics including directed evolution, in silico evolution, genome editing and cell programming.
On top of that, we set up a workshop to enable the students to transfer their knowledge from theory into practice. To make the topic more tangible for the students, our team created a novel script to convict a fictional murderer by his DNA. By this, the students were introduced to basic molecular biology methods including pipetting, basic DNA & enzyme handling, PCR, restriction digestion and gel electrophoresis. Thankfully, parts of the biologicals used for the experiments were sponsored by Bio-Rad.
When planning and executing the practical session, ensuring the highest safety standards was a top priority. We managed using only non-carcinogenic DNA stain and UV-light free gel electrophoresis always guaranteeing the student's safety. Besides imparting general knowledge about laboratory methods in synthetic and molecular biology, we also wanted to increase the student’s awareness of general potential hazards in the lab and safety requirements.
Novel developments in synthetic and molecular biology like CRISPR/Cas have not been integrated into the curriculum of many high schools yet. Therefore, the students were very excited about asking the team members general questions about those new techniques and possibilities in the synthetic biology field. We were happy to answer all their questions regarding our project, important synthetic biology tools and also their ethical implications. The students were very enthusiastic about our project and synthetic biology in general, and we are certain that our event has strengthened the student’s interest in the field and STEM disciplines in general. Moreover, we hope the students were sensitized for the ethical implications of synthetic biology, by the long and fact-orientated discussions during the session.

After our school experience, we decided to go deeper into the roots of society by addressing even younger generations. We collaborated with iGEM UNAMBG to create a German version of their children’s storybook which features different biotechnological approaches for diabetes patients. By reaching out to children in such an approachable way, we hopefully gave them an insight into the possible benefits of biotechnology, diminishing fears of synthetic biology not just for them, but also for their parents.

Young students often believe that science is all about showing great results or celebrating achievements. But sometimes it is just about trying to tackle basic problems, like finding the optimal conditions for cloning or an in vitro ligation. That’s why we diced to create a PCR dice game for high school and college students. This way we can introduce them in a playful way to the exciting, but sometimes also very tricky, world of PCRs. Just like playing a game of ludo we want to encourage young scientists that giving up is never an option no matter how frustrating the situation may be. Sometimes all it needs is another try to make it work.

According to the advice given to us by both Dr. Dorothea Kaufmann and Dr. Adlung, we also wanted to reach out to the general masses. Both advisers told us that talking to people on the open street is an excellent way to start raising more interest in science and engaging in informative dialogues. For this reason, we decided to go to different public places in Heidelberg to talk to random passersby.

Very soon we realized that approaching people in public to talk about bioscience and biotechnology is not always easy. They are reluctant to be confronted with the topic or even afraid to ask questions themselves. Therefore, we used the postcards we had designed for our collaboration with Düsseldorf to educate the open public about our work. That's how we were able not only to raise more public interest in biotechnology, but also to educate the society about the field and its recent proceedings.

Make science visible! References: [1] https://doi.org/10.1096/fj.201600598