Team:Oxford/Engagement


Education and Public Engagement

Introduction

Designing educational activities around synthetic biology is difficult because the field is new and interdisciplinary (Kuldell, 2007). Consequently there are a lack of standard principles and definitions, creating an enlarging division of knowledge between the general public and synthetic biology community which fosters generalisation and misconceptions. Bidirectional public engagement is necessary to help bridge this gap, and was therefore a key focus of our public engagement.

Young People Engagement - summer schools

A major reason for the gap is a lack of synthetic biology training of the young. To accurately tackle this problem we base our activities on learning objectives for MIT undergraduates training in synthetic biology (Kuldell, 2007) (Figure 1). Our approach means our educational activities are not generalised, true to core synthetic biology concepts, and encourage scientific thinking. Although there are a few excellent secondary education tools available (e.g. biobuilder) many of these require extensive access to lab equipment and expensive resources, creating a barrier to use in teaching. Therefore our designed activities emphasis low cost, minimal materials and do not assume teaching lab access.

Figure 1: Main outcomes of synthetic biology education and activities we designed to fulfil these

Activities

To meet these outcomes we designed a variety of activities including: a genetic memory computer lab, bacterial photography system, ethical washing line, and biosensor design. These activities have been formatted into lesson plans and printable resources, made publically available for use by by future iGEM teams.

Our workshops were used at 3 different oxford summer schools: northwest science ( students 17-18yrs interested a broad range of sciences), Oriel college summer school (students 13-14 yrs interested in medicine) and UNIQ (academically selected students 17-18 yrs from state schools and disadvantaged backgrounds interested in biochemistry).

Image 1: Zoë C and John giving a presentation at the Northwest Science school at Corpus Christi college
Image 2: Chun, Jei, Alissa, Helen and Sumera at the UNIQ summer school

Improving through Feedback

Student feedback allowed us to refine our activities after each school (Table 1). For example, we converted the tinker cell computer based bacterial photography system activity into a paper based game so computers access was no longer needed, and developed a formalised ethical washing line workshop after finding students disengaged by an unstructured ethical discussion. In addition to workshops, Zoe F gave a university style lecture about synthetic biology and our project to students at the northwest science school.

School Positives Problems Modifications
Northwest School
  • One group had high engagement in the toggle switch lab, despite not choosing A level biology
  • One student chose to use the tinkercell computer aided design for their school extended project
  • The biosensor design was presented as an extension discussion and was very well received with some interesting designs including a bacterial geiger counter
  • The logistics of using the tinkercell program was difficult as laptops were limited, therefore students could not work independently
  • Due to lack of computer resources we had to create a paper based bacterial tinkercell circuit, which was just as well received in the other sessions
  • Originally the ethical discussion was left as an open discussion at the end of the session, however this was not well received and discussion were very general. As a consequence we decided to create structured ethical washing line using real synthetic biology applications as case studies
  • Developed the biosensor design into a structured worksheet after the success of the extension activity
Oriel
  • The students creatively engaged with the biosensor design worksheet
  • Groups worked at different rates
  • Students struggled to conceptualise the toggle switch
  • Suggested discussion points on the worksheet so demonstrators could extend the activities if they had a particularly quick group
UNIQ
  • The students were highly engaged and discussed beyond the activities
  • Many students described the workshop as the highlight of the week
  • In the general question and answer session students had many general questions about synthetic biology
  • Timing was an issue with groups not completing all tasks within the set 2 hour time frame
  • Added timings of activities to the lesson plans

Curiosity Carnival

The team had an activity stand at the curiosity carnival, an Oxford wide festival for researchers to share their research in innovative ways. Our stand was in the centre of the city and attracted a diverse audience of more than 4500 members of the public, from young children to other researchers.

Image 3: Kushal, Angela, Sumera and Zoe C at the curiosity carnival

Our stand involved:

  • Poster display outlining facts about Chagas disease and our diagnostic solution
  • ‘Find-cruzi’ game to highlight the difficulty of identifying the parasite by microscopy of a blood smear
  • ‘E. coli pong’ game to explain transformation
  • Competition to design a biosensor from magnets on a white board
  • Voting on ethical scenarios
  • Duplo building to highlight the principle of DNA parts as biobricks that can be combined to create sequences of a designed function
Image 4: Sumera demonstrating our ‘E. coli - pong’ activity

IGEM UK Meet-ups

Engaging with other teams to share ideas and techniques is a vital component of iGEM: we were grateful to be able to attend the UK meet up jointly organised by the University of Westminster, UCL, and Warwick during which we gave jamboree style poster and powerpoint presentation to other teams, providing invaluable preparation for Boston. The event was lots of fun and we appreciated the opportunity to meet, network and form collaborations with other UK teams.

Image 5: Our excellent speakers (Arthur and John) pose with Tom cruzi (complete with his own little tie) before they go in to give our presentation at the Shard
Image 6: UCL held a fantastic set of debates about synthetic biology, and our team members were very successful - here's Zoe F with their winning team, who argued in favour of using genetically modified organs
Image 6: At Westminster, Arthur talks through our poster with members of the UCL team

References

Kuldell, N. [Authentic teaching and learning through synthetic biology.], ''Journal of Biological Engineering.'', (2007)