Team:Imperial College/Public Engagement
Outreach and Education
How did we approach Outreach and Education?
These outreach events came because of the communication protocols using the science communication framework. We recognized that discussion of socio-ethics as well as a look at the potential of patterning applications in a way that is not abstract to the audience were the most effective methods in maintaining audience interest and approval of our project.
Communications Strategy Guide
Following the Communications Strategy Guide, and in particular, the Science Communication Framework, we targeted 3 main audience types for our outreach efforts. These audiences include academic staff and students at Imperial, members of the public with no relation to synthetic biology and children/teenagers. Each outreach effort was optimized for its target audience and effort was taken to optimize for circumstances around the outreach effort. Lastly for most of our outreach efforts, feedback given was either recorded or verbally. More information on the CSG can be found here
Public Opinion Survey
We also wanted to gauge how our project may be implemented in the future. Surveys that were done to better characterize members of the general public's opinions of our technology and synthetic biology have shown to be inconclusive in correlating knowledge of synthetic biology and opposition of general use of synthetic biology. Hence outreach regarding future implementing our project have to keep into account bioethics and better show the potential beneficial effects of implementing our technology. With these conclusions in mind, we decided to host as a socio-ethics discussion to better address the ethics of controlling life, as well as an art exhibition that would better visualize these potential beneficial effects. More information about our surveys can be found here
Our survey tested whether people that are more knowledgeable about the science behind biotechnology are generally more positive towards GMOs. We included 66 participants in our survey. Our survey was conducted at multiple different locations in central London including the ScienceMuseum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Natural History Museum and Exhibition Road in South Kensington. Our survey was divided into two parts: in the first, we asked scientific questions on the area of biotechnology, in the second part we asked whether the participants are in favour or against certain future applications of our technology.
During data analysis, the participants were divided into knowledgeable/unknowledgeable and Favourable/Unfavorable towards GMOs. A chi-square test was performed and showed no correlation between background knowledge on GMOs and acceptance of biotechnology.
This result showed that our upstream engagement should focus directly on the ethical concerns around our project rather than purely educating around the science behind GMOs. This defined our entire human practise and outreach strategy. Our findings led us to host a public debate discussing ethical issues associated with synthetic biology. The insight gained during the survey also fed into the creation of our science communication guide - focusing on the ethical concerns of the audience rather than focusing solely on explaining the science behind the technology. Our art exhibition is also aimed at changing the perception around our technology rather than focusing on the science alone.
Next, we analysed how the general public perceived the use of electrical control in our project. This was important to us as electronic control is often negatively connotated as for example the Frankenstein monster in Shelleys' goth novel Frankenstein. Data analysis showed that the use of electricity in potential applications does not influence the acceptance of our technology.
Art Exhibition
Following the conclusions that members of the general public are more interested in the potential of our project than its inner workings, we decided to showcase the potential of our project visually through an art exhibition. We commissioned several artists to create art pieces for us. We will be displaying some of these pieces at the Giant Jamboree and have brought several of them to the New Scientist Live Fair. Images of the Art Exhibition are shown below.: IMAGES OF ART GALLERY
New Scientist Live!
We attended New Scientist Live Fair. At the event, we were doing outreach for synthetic biology as well as discussing with the public about our project in collaboration with the team at Oxford. We also used surveys in order to collect feedback on our outreach effort which are available here. Images of outreach at New Scientist is available below:
Board Game
We designed a board game called "Divide and Contaminate" to highlight key concepts in synthetic biology. The goal of the player is to populate a tile-based board with a special strain of E. coli the player designed to adapt to the unknown environment of the tiles. We hope that players, especially younger ones, will appreciate the concepts of modularity, metabolic burden and the impact genes have on cell physiology. These concepts are key to grasping more complicated concepts in synthetic biology for younger people and may get them interested or aware of the potential of synthetic biology. The guidelines as well as printable components for the game are available in a PDF below:
Socio-ethics Discussion
In response to the need of dealing with bio-ethical considerations of our project, we hosted a socio-ethics discussion in collaboration with the synthetic biology society at Imperial College. We discussed the socio-ethical implications of synthetic biology as a field, as well as with specific regards to our project. There was a considerable audience turnout (more than a hundred) at the event. We were able to gather many perspectives on our project as a result of this discussion and will put it to good use integrating it in our project. Notably, biocontainment was raised as a huge concern among members of the audience. Some of the thoughts and questions by the audience for feedback are available in a PDF file below.
Synbio outreach at Imperial
As members of Imperial College London, we participated in many outreach events for Imperial College. In the beginning of our project, we helped supervise a group of sixth-formers with their transformation experiments as well as giving a presentation on synthetic biology in an outreach effort by Nico McCarty, a Ph.D student. We also hosted various departmental seminars to update academic staff as well as students at Imperial on our project. This culminated in a final seminar with the synthetic biology society at Imperial where we also hosted the socio-ethics discussion above. Lastly, we collaborated with the synthetic biology society at Imperial where we helped run their stall for Fresher's Fair and updating students both incoming and returning on our project and encouraging them to go to our seminars. Pictures of our various outreach efforts at Imperial are shown below:
