Team:Paris Bettencourt/Engagement
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
INTRODUCTION
Through our surveys and various talks, we found that often the recurring theme was a lack of information and contact with the public about how synthetic biology works and its implications for society.
Although our project’s application is broad and touches a variety of fields, we found that it was difficult for people trained in other fields to relate to the synthetic biology aspect. In our questionnaire, one of the results that we found is that most people were unaware of the benefits of synthetic biology and how to use it, rather than being scared of synthetic biology itself.
Therefore we investigated how best to disseminate ideas about synthetic biology and how to make our project appeal to people in other sectors. Moreover we put it into a context to which they could relate.
CONTACT WITH EDUCATORS
At the outset, we wanted to contact students and professionals in education to understand what are the current technologies that have proven effective in their field and how best to disseminate our project.
Meeting with teachers and people who work in the education sector
We first decided to meet with teachers who have worked with students of different levels and ages. We met with:
Edgar Ornelas, a former high school teacher who has worked in the public sector and who currently focusses on implementing open source learning circles across Paris.
Maria Azi, an education professional who has experience teaching elementary school level and is currently implementing successful educational programmes for big companies.
They explained to us that effective education depends on the interchange and feedback between educators and students, and successful educational programmes which we could disseminate to a large audience need to be :
Interactive
Reproducible
Accessible
Capable of being personalised- learning by doing
Cooperative
Furthermore, they referred us to relevant literature allowing us to better understand the process of learning, which we then used when developing our programmes.
Through these interactions and by studying the literature we decided to focus on educational games as well as peer to peer learning.
Therefore, in our search for an innovative, pedagogical and fun way of learning, we decided to create a laboratory-themed Escape Game: EscapeTheLab!.
Our whole team got together with the help of friends and members of the Enigma Club from the Center for Research andInterdisciplinary (CRI) for a two-day game jam. We spent both days brainstorming and testing enigmas and different concepts, and finally at the end of the event, we were proud to introduce our EscapeTheLab! to 3 teams of players.
Since its creation, we have presented our game 10 times inside of the Center for Research and Interdisciplinary as well as at the Cité des Sciences et de l’industrie to a total of 68 players including 2 iGEM teams: UPMC and Pasteur. In total, we had over 15 hours of game and feedback time with the players.
Each time was an opportunity for us to improve our game to get a better experience for the players and reach a maximum number of people. One of our goals was also to perfect it to present some of its best enigmas to iGEMers from all over the globe during the Jamboree. Thus, after each session, we organized a feedback time with the players, insisting on the enigmas and the biological concept behind them. We asked them first of all what their impression was, how they would improve the game, what they liked, what they didn’t like, what they understood and didn’t. Finally we asked them to answer a short anonymous questionnaire to have concrete data to work on.
At the outset, we wanted to contact students and professionals in education to understand what are the current technologies that have proven effective in their field and how best to disseminate our project.
Meeting with teachers and people who work in the education sector
We first decided to meet with teachers who have worked with students of different levels and ages. We met with:
Edgar Ornelas, a former high school teacher who has worked in the public sector and who currently focusses on implementing open source learning circles across Paris.
Maria Azi, an education professional who has experience teaching elementary school level and is currently implementing successful educational programmes for big companies.
They explained to us that effective education depends on the interchange and feedback between educators and students, and successful educational programmes which we could disseminate to a large audience need to be :
Interactive
Reproducible
Accessible
Capable of being personalised- learning by doing
Cooperative
Furthermore, they referred us to relevant literature allowing us to better understand the process of learning, which we then used when developing our programmes.
Through these interactions and by studying the literature we decided to focus on educational games as well as peer to peer learning.
Therefore, in our search for an innovative, pedagogical and fun way of learning, we decided to create a laboratory-themed Escape Game: EscapeTheLab!.
Our whole team got together with the help of friends and members of the Enigma Club from the Center for Research andInterdisciplinary (CRI) for a two-day game jam. We spent both days brainstorming and testing enigmas and different concepts, and finally at the end of the event, we were proud to introduce our EscapeTheLab! to 3 teams of players.
Since its creation, we have presented our game 10 times inside of the Center for Research and Interdisciplinary as well as at the Cité des Sciences et de l’industrie to a total of 68 players including 2 iGEM teams: UPMC and Pasteur. In total, we had over 15 hours of game and feedback time with the players.
Each time was an opportunity for us to improve our game to get a better experience for the players and reach a maximum number of people. One of our goals was also to perfect it to present some of its best enigmas to iGEMers from all over the globe during the Jamboree. Thus, after each session, we organized a feedback time with the players, insisting on the enigmas and the biological concept behind them. We asked them first of all what their impression was, how they would improve the game, what they liked, what they didn’t like, what they understood and didn’t. Finally we asked them to answer a short anonymous questionnaire to have concrete data to work on.
We first decided to meet with teachers who have worked with students of different levels and ages. We met with:
Edgar Ornelas, a former high school teacher who has worked in the public sector and who currently focusses on implementing open source learning circles across Paris.
Maria Azi, an education professional who has experience teaching elementary school level and is currently implementing successful educational programmes for big companies.
They explained to us that effective education depends on the interchange and feedback between educators and students, and successful educational programmes which we could disseminate to a large audience need to be :
Interactive
Reproducible
Accessible
Capable of being personalised- learning by doing
Cooperative
Furthermore, they referred us to relevant literature allowing us to better understand the process of learning, which we then used when developing our programmes.
Through these interactions and by studying the literature we decided to focus on educational games as well as peer to peer learning.
Therefore, in our search for an innovative, pedagogical and fun way of learning, we decided to create a laboratory-themed Escape Game: EscapeTheLab!.
Our whole team got together with the help of friends and members of the Enigma Club from the Center for Research andInterdisciplinary (CRI) for a two-day game jam. We spent both days brainstorming and testing enigmas and different concepts, and finally at the end of the event, we were proud to introduce our EscapeTheLab! to 3 teams of players.
Since its creation, we have presented our game 10 times inside of the Center for Research and Interdisciplinary as well as at the Cité des Sciences et de l’industrie to a total of 68 players including 2 iGEM teams: UPMC and Pasteur. In total, we had over 15 hours of game and feedback time with the players.
Each time was an opportunity for us to improve our game to get a better experience for the players and reach a maximum number of people. One of our goals was also to perfect it to present some of its best enigmas to iGEMers from all over the globe during the Jamboree. Thus, after each session, we organized a feedback time with the players, insisting on the enigmas and the biological concept behind them. We asked them first of all what their impression was, how they would improve the game, what they liked, what they didn’t like, what they understood and didn’t. Finally we asked them to answer a short anonymous questionnaire to have concrete data to work on.
Centre for Research and Interdisciplinarity (CRI)
Faculty of Medicine Cochin Port-Royal, South wing, 2nd floor
Paris Descartes University
24, rue du Faubourg Saint Jacques
75014 Paris, France
bettencourt.igem2017@gmail.com
bettencourt.igem2017@gmail.com 
