PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

Public Education

Intro:

For our public engagement this year, team UAlberta conducted a public education project. The purpose of this project was to educate the public about our project and synthetic biology. We did this to share our knowledge and receive feedback about our work and learn about the public's concerns so that we could address their concerns thoroughly.

To accomplish this goal, we engaged with the community through various mediums, we spoke at schools across Alberta, we partnered with DiscoverE, a local summer camp, posted weekly to our blog and our podcast, and spoke with over 100 individuals from the public at the farmers market. But of course, public education is also about learning, and while the majority of responses to our project were positive there was a common concern about GMOs, particularly about GMO regulations here in Canada. In response to this concern, we conducted a Policy Review of GMO regulations in Canada.

Engaging with the kiddos:

One of the best ways to conduct a public education project is to speak with children and educate them about our work and synthetic biology. As such, we presented to schools across Alberta, and we partnered with the DiscoverE summer camp and presented to their campers about synthetic biology.

We presented to both elementary and high schools including St. Luke Catholic School Elementary in Sherwood Park and Jasper Place High School in Edmonton. We tailored our presentations to suit the students’ knowledge levels and the objective of our education project. For high schools, we aimed to educate them about synthetic biology as the basics of biology are covered in high school, but high schools rarely have the opportunity to learn about synthetic biology in detail, particularly from people who are doing research. Speaking with high school students was beneficial as it allowed them to broaden their knowledge and learn about what jobs and educational opportunities they could pursue in the future. Often the high school students were very knowledgeable and as a result did not ask as many questions. However, presenting to elementary students was a very different experience. Presenting to elementary students was amazing as they were very curious, and continuously asked questions which challenged us to see things through a different lense. For the elementary school presentations, we tailored the presentation to suit their knowledge and learning objectives and so we spoke to them about bees, flowers, and pollination, since they were learning about pollination in their classes. They constantly wanted to learn more, and asked many questions about what was killing the bees and how they could help.

Throughout the summer we presented to over 80 campers at DiscoverE, a summer camp which is run out of the University of Alberta's engineering department. The goal of DiscoverE is to “serve... youth, our future leaders, by inspiring and engaging them through fun, meaningful, and accessible science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programs. [They] help participants overcome barriers, maximize their potential, and achieve positive life outcomes" [1]. To further this inspirational goal we presented to campers on Fridays and taught them about synthetic biology, and how amazing it can be. We also allowed them to take part in activities that taught them about synthetic biology, by having them plate the bacteria from their hands, and build models of DNA from candy. Finally, we also wanted to help participants overcome barriers by having our female team members lead the presentation to inspire the female campers to pursue an education in STEM.

From speaking with children across Alberta, we were able to spread knowledge about synthetic biology, bees, and of course iGEM. These presentations showed us how smart and passionate kids are and how their curiosity can push you to see things from a different perspective. While the kids reacted very positively to our project, a common question that we received was about the safety of GMOs.

General Public Education

To educate the public about our project and learn about their concerns we posted weekly to our blog, UAlberta iGEM, and our podcast, Bee-hind The Scenes, we covered many different topics including bees, GMOs, our project, iGEM, women in STEM, and much more. These projects were worthwhile because anyone can find detailed information about our project though these media, and anyone who listened to them would receive information that they might not otherwise have access to.

We also went to our farmers market and gave out pamphlets and spoke to over 100 people. We thought speaking at the farmers market would be good for learning about public perception as generally products at our local farmers market are “GMO free" and many of the companies that sell their products there are anti-GMO, so they could provide a different perspective.

From speaking with the community, we learned that overall people are very passionate about our project as they want to help save the bees, but we also learned that there is fear and resistance towards the use of GMOs, and GMO regulations here in Canada, and it was through researching for our podcast that we learned that the complaints the public had raised were legitimate and that we should address them.

Policy Review

After speaking with the public, it became clear that most people were very passionate about our project and had little concern, but as is common with most iGEM projects the public did express concerns about GMOs in Canada, and rather than explain away this concern we decided to address it and began looking into GMO regulations in Canada. Immediately we saw room for improvement, and as a result we decided to conduct a policy review.

Our policy paper seeks to understand the Canadian government's GMO regulations, and from the perspective of an undergraduate iGEM team make recommendations for how GMO regulation and government action surrounding GMOs can be changed. It is our hope that these recommendations could be used to create GMO regulations which best serve the public, maintain public safety, increase public education with GMOs (which will help to create a public trust in GMOs), hold companies to account, and protect the environment. The UAlberta iGEM team is also confident that all these changes can be made while allowing for scientific development to continue unhindered.

It can be found here.