Team:Calgary/Education
Importance of Science Communication
“Nothing in science has any value if it is not communicated” - Anne Roe
Effective communication is an essential aspect of any science development. It allows for sharing of researching findings and results and project values to multiple audiences whether it be engaging academic communities for scientific collaborations, or opening spaces for conversation among the general public.
Engaging the public about synthetic biology is one iGEM Calgary’s core values. We believe that having open communication is an important aspect of iGEM since it fosters important conversations with the public about the growing field of synthetic biology and the applications of this field.
We understand that the problem we are addressing at hand has a palpable impact on a variety of communities both locally and globally. Hence, NEOCYCLE aims to inform the science community as well as the general public on the importance of REE scarcity and E-waste recycling, and the possibilities of synthetic biology as a promising avenue for solving many of these relevant problems. Recognizing that the conversation of synthetic biology and the issue of REE scarcity impacts all of us, we conducted a variety of education initiatives that targeted different demographics. These initiatives are not only aimed to inform people about this issue, but to also listen to their feedback and concerns when it comes to REE scarcity and applying synthetic biology as a solution to tackle this issue.
Our education initiatives aimed to reach four different demographics: (1) Elementary School Level; (2) Highschool Level; (3) University Level Students; and (4) General Population.
Figure 1.Overview of Neocycle's educational initiatives.
Primary School Level Audience (Ages 8-12)
Starting with the primary school level audience, the goal of our initiatives was to provide context about the problem with electronic waste recycling and provide a glimpse into how e-waste can be used to address resource scarcity through fun and interactive methods. To achieve this, we developed an interactive Virtual Escape Room game and presented it in collaboration with the Calgary Public library, and made a children-story book in collaboration with other iGEM teams focusing on environmental issues.
The Misadventures of LanE- Escape Room
We developed a Virtual Escape Room game that allowed for the participant to follow along with the misadventures of Lan-E, an REE mining robot to work against the evil Peach Corp. to recycle as much electronic waste as they can. In this escape room, kids learn about the growing problem of electronic waste, how poorly rare earth elements in it are recycled, and how we can use synthetic biology to make it better. Once we developed the Virtual Escape Room, we partnered with the Calgary Public Library to host online escape room sessions to lead groups of kids through it! We hosted two interactive online sessions each with groups of 10-15 kids ages 9-12 to go along with the journey of Lan-E. Curious to see how Lan-E was able to escape? Try it out yourself!
The Misadventures of Lan-E Storybook
Following a similar storyline to our LanE- Escape Room, we decided to explore a different method of delivery to spread our story and its message to a larger, international audience! Through our story book collaboration with FCB-Monterrary , we decided to turn the Misadventures of Lan-E into 10-page children's story book that would be featured in a collection of 7 short stories based on the different environmental issues addressed by each iGEM team. After the storybook was completed, through an organized event with FCB-Monterrey, we invited elementary school children from both Calgary and Monterrary to receive tangible feedback from our intended target audiences and engage with the students!
Highschool Level Audience (Ages 14-17)
Our goal with the highschool level audience is to provide an overview of synthetic biology as a multidisciplinary field of science that can be applied to address real-world problems. To achieve this goal, we visited highschools and hosted presentations regarding synthetic biology applications. We also collaborated with iGEM Warwick and iGEM Guelph to provide material about our project to high school students.
Educational High School Presentations
Another project that we carried out was for the high school student demographic. We believe this group is innately curious about what students do in University so we have partnered and will continue to reach out to high schools in our city to teach these emerging scientists the basics of synthetic biology. We reached out to two Calgary highschools, Henry Wisewood High School and Sir Winston Churchill High School to host our presentations in their biology classes. Our presentations mostly focused on the application of synthetic biology and the central dogma. We also make sure to collaborate closely with the teacher of the class in order to provide a broader understanding of genetic engineering without overwhelming students with technical jargon. We stressed the importance of what this technology can do and have picked a multitude of case studies to talk about in order to show the multifaceted abilities of synthetic biology.
iGEM Collaborations
Throughout the season, we participated in a number of iGEM collaborations to engage with high school students and provide them the opportunity to learn about synthetic biology!
We collaborated with iGEM Warwick and provided them material to make a booklet that features a wide range of iGEM team projects. This booklet will be distributed to 16-18 year olds and allow them to learn more about the vast applications of synthetic biology. For more info, check out our collaboration page!
We also collaborated with iGEM Guelph by providing material on our project, which was collected into a journal. This journal features various other 2021 iGEM projects that will be distributed to students and teachers at high schools around the world. We will also be distributing the finished collections to our local high school partners.
University Level Students
As university students ourselves, we all remember our first experience with synthetic biology. For many of us it was through iGEM itself. Synthetic biology can be a fascinating subject, but also immensely overwhelming at times. Based on our own experiences with learning about synthetic biology, we aimed to develop an Introduction to Synthetic Biology course for fellow university students. For up and coming iGEM teams, this lecture deck also contains iGEM-specific information and assignments to help further students’ understanding of the competition. Our goal with this course is to provide a comprehensive look into the field of synthetic biology at a university-level, by placing emphasis on wetlab, drylab, and human practices aspects.
Introduction to Synthetic Biology Course
The Introduction to Synthetic Biology Course consists of 19 lectures, one lecture slide deck template, three whole team assignments, and three drylab-specific assignments. These lectures cover general topics, such as an introduction to the field of synthetic biology and the iGEM competition, as well as specific wet lab topics such as understanding genetic circuits, and drylab topics such as machine learning and neural networks. This course was specifically refreshed this year to provide a more general look at synthetic biology as a whole, and ensure that individuals from several different backgrounds can learn from it. This course was presented to members of our iGEM team this year such that we could test the efficacy of the course with our target demographic, receive feedback on both the positives and negatives of the course, and revise it to be even better in coming years.
General Public Audience
Lastly, to target the adolescent and adult population from the general public, we wanted to start a conversation on the value of synthetic biology, specifically on its applications in-field. Over the past few years the amount of misinformation surrounding synthetic biology and genetic engineering has greatly risen, which has created fear and mistrust amongst the public. To clear some of the misunderstanding and misinformation surrounding this topic, provide an insightful perspective on the in-field applications of synthetic biology, and raise awareness on the growing REE scarcity problem, we collaborated with the Calgary Public Library to conduct a two-part lecture series on the scientific background and applications of synthetic biology. In addition, since social media is highly used by the general public to learn information, we launched two social media collaborations, one with iGEM Bonn and the second with the University of Calgary Sustainability Office, to spread awareness on the REE scarcity problem.
Calgary Public Library- Presentations
One of the initiatives was partnering up with the Calgary Public Library in order to present a two-part lecture series for the general public on the applications of synthetic biology. The first lecture was an Introduction to Genetics Engineering GMO ethics, where we talked about everything from the ethics of GMOs, biocontainment, and delved into case studies to show people the wide range of problems that synthetic biology can solve. Our second lecture was called: From Blueprint to Product, a How-to on genetics engineering, where we covered through introducing the central dogma and demonstrated this with a strawberry DNA extraction experiment they can all try at home!
REE Scarcity Social Media Campaign
While many of our educational initiatives were locally-focused, we wanted to expand our reach to a global audience. As such, we harnessed the power of social media to improve the accessibility of our educational projects. We realized that public knowledge regarding rare earth elements and their applications was quite limited; thus, we launched two unique social media campaigns to spread information about the rare earth element scarcity problem:
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The first of these campaigns was part of our partnership with iGEM Bonn. Both of our projects were focused on targeting the REE scarcity problem, and as such, we thought it would be important to educate the public about the significance of REEs, REE applications, and REE scarcity. Together, we designed and promoted social media posts that would creatively display facts regarding the importance of REEs in an understandable manner to our target audience.
Secondly, in order to develop our project sustainability, we reached out to the University of Calgary Sustainability Office to gain a deeper understanding of the SDGs. This collaboration soon evolved into an opportunity for a social media partnership to showcase facts about REE scarcity, e-waste recycling, and our sustainability goals. Our educational campaign was promoted on the University of Calgary Sustainability social media accounts, which enabled us to reach a larger audience and better promote our sustainability initiatives. At the end of this collaboration, we implemented a local e-waste recycling drive to bring our educational ideas to action. Check out our sustainability page for more details!
Education Initiative Timeline
Figure 2.Timeline of Education Initatives
Throughout the course of the season, iGEM Calgary strived to provide an inclusive and comprehensive understanding of synthetic biology and the importance of REE recycling to the general public. By targeting specific demographics, we aimed to engage with our audiences in different ways and inform them on the growing issue of REE scarcity.
