Team:Aix-Marseille/Night
Every year the “European researchers’ night ” takes place in several cities throughout Europe. This year we had the opportunity to participate in this event the 28th and 29th of september.
28th of september
The topic was “a thousand a one ways to do research”, that is why this first day we went to several high schools in Marseille with three other researchers to tell people about our IGEM adventure. In order to make synthetic biology accessible to high schools students, we had to adapt our language and supports so we made a simple graph of our project. Our motivation was to share our passion and knowledge about biology and to stimulate the students’ curiosity. We had 8 minutes to popularize our science and tell a story of our year of iGEM. This event was a great opportunity to teach students and raise their awareness about synthetic biology and the ethical questions it poses and the acceptable limits. It was interesting for them to know more about biotechnology and our breaking bugs project. We also had a lot of questions about our university studies. We wanted to show that it is possible to talk about biology, and science in general with people of all ages and with different knowledges and we think that this message was well received by the students.
29th of september
On the second day, the researchers' night aims to attract a public that is not familiar with science and awaken the desire to develop and maintain a connection with research after the event. Through the art of storytelling, we engaged with the public in a game of exchange that enables all participants to critically discuss communication and to come to a better understanding of what research activity entails. Our team had two tales to share with the audience: synthetic biology and the breaking bugs project. We were invited to participate on a radio show dedicated to the European research night, with Radio Grenouille (Frog Radio in French!). We explained the iGEM competition and the building of our project, we met with lots of other scientist and had the opportunity to discuss our project with them and get their point of view on our project.