Our team engaged with the public about synthetic biology often, most notably when we presented at the NASA Ames Research Center Showcase, the Mountain View Tech Showcase, and the NIAC Symposium in Boston. At all of these events we presented on our project to a diverse audience –– ranging from children to researchers working on NASA. At the showcases we also extended our presentation to what the field of synthetic biology is, teaching through demonstration: having individuals extract strawberry DNA (to the delight of many children) and fold up paper origami. It was also particularly rewarding to hear young people, especially young girls, say how much they our project and that they wanted to pursue an education in science.

NASA Ames Research Center Showcase