Team:Hawaii/Collaborations
COLLAB
Reaching out to educate with Team Dalhousie
Team Hawaii collaborated with Team Dalhousie to better educate the public in scientific research. Every week, Team Dalhousie posts an article on their blog that summarizes scientific research in layman’s teams. Each article is written by a different team. Team Hawaii wrote an article about the functions of virus-like particles (VLPs) in medicine and research as delivery molecules and vaccine providers, uploaded October 15.
The scientific community makes great bounds in improving mankind and the world every day, but these accomplishments often go unnoticed by the public. Of course, scientists do not go into their respective field for praise, at least most claim that, but the public should be aware of what is happening in science. We encourage high schoolers to keep up with politics and world events, and we should do the same for science. Keeping up with the news allows for people to provide informed opinions on the matter, which in turn may shape public policy. When the public often hears of some new scientific breakthrough, most cannot comprehend the consequences or benefits of it. Either they fear it with no substantive reasoning or support it without understanding the ethical hazards it may spur.
VLPs, like any focus of research, holds the potential for violating our ethics. If tampering with the maize genome may pose health and environmental risks, should we continue this area of research? Is it ethical to continue our research with the possibility of helping many while also possibly endangering countless others? As scientists, we are risk takers and optimistic. We try to paint over ethical consequences with the possible benefits our discoveries may reap.
If we bring in the public opinion into the scientific community, perhaps this “paint-brushing” will come with more restrain. As the public actively analyzes our research ambitions, they can, hopefully positively, shape the avenue in which we research. To do so, published research needs to be separately gifted to the public in a plainly wrapped journal, free of frilly scientific jargon or sparkly technical language. In doing so, we run the risk of losing detail, but these details are perhaps irrelevant. This allows the public to understand what we are crafting and provide input as to what future avenues we should explore.
Team Hawaii contributed to Team Dalhousie’s blog to better the education of the public. Merging a better connection between the non-scientific and scientific community will better both the world and our research.