Difference between revisions of "Team:Exeter/Engagement"

Line 612: Line 612:
 
 
 
<!--Give span class "oneline" or "twoline" depending on how llong the section text is-->
 
<!--Give span class "oneline" or "twoline" depending on how llong the section text is-->
−
<a href="#section_1" class="banner_link col-xs-6 col-sm-3"><span class="twoline">Educational Game <br />BioMech</span></a>
+
<a href="#section_1" class="banner_link col-xs-6 col-sm-2"><span class="twoline">Educational Game <br />BioMech</span></a>
−
<a href="#section_2" class="banner_link col-xs-6 col-sm-3"><span class="oneline">Higher Education</span></a>
+
<a href="#section_2" class="banner_link col-xs-6 col-sm-2"><span class="oneline">Higher Education</span></a>
−
<a href="#section_3" class="banner_link col-xs-6 col-sm-3"><span class="oneline">Public Engagement</span></a>
+
<a href="#section_3" class="banner_link col-xs-6 col-sm-2"><span class="twoline">Podcast: Desert <br /> Island... Science?</span></a>
−
<a href="#section_4" class="banner_link col-xs-6 col-sm-3"><span class="oneline">S4</span></a>
+
<a href="#section_4" class="banner_link col-xs-6 col-sm-2"><span class="oneline">Meet-Ups</span></a>
 +
<a href="#section_5" class="banner_link col-xs-6 col-sm-2"><span class="oneline">Student Engagement</span></a>
 +
<a href="#section_6" class="banner_link col-xs-6 col-sm-2"><span class="oneline">Other</span></a>
 
</div>
 
</div>
 
<!--Left picture (the teal line on left)-->
 
<!--Left picture (the teal line on left)-->
Line 808: Line 810:
 
<div id="section_3" class="link_fix"></div>
 
<div id="section_3" class="link_fix"></div>
 
<div id="contentTitle">
 
<div id="contentTitle">
−
S3
+
Desert Island... Science?
 
</div>
 
</div>
  
 +
<p id="pp">As another part of our human practices, we wanted to focus on engaging the general public with all sciences but significantly, with synthetic biology. In particular, we have created 'Desert Island...Science?' based on the format of the popular 'Desert Island Discs' radio show. This asks guests to choose two songs; one book; one luxury item; and a piece of lab equipment to take with them to a desert island. We also speak with them about their thoughts on a range of scientific topics, including the future of synthetic biology; the importance of collaboration between different scientific disciplines; and the promotion of STEM fields to all members of the public. </p>
  
 +
                <p id="pp">The guests we chose represent a range of areas of expertise, including Prof. Richard Kitney, Co-Director of the EPSRC National Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation; and prominent theoretical physicist Prof. Jim Al-Khalili. </p>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">Prof. Kitney is a biomedical systems engineering professor at Imperial College London and has been a pioneer of the field of synthetic biology for over a decade. During his episode of 'Desert Island... Science?', we spoke to him about using our human practices work in engaging young people with synthetic biology and our iGEM project and he has this to say:</p>
 +
 +
               
 +
                <h5><q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>We're just at the start of this revolution in engineering and biology, the sooner you can get young people interested in this field and, in my opinion, the whole of science and engineering, the better</i></q></h5>
 +
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">It was really gratifying to hear a very prominent and important figure in synthetic biology confirm that our education and public engagement work is important and needed for furthering the field of synthetic biology. Prof. Kitney’s comments reflected a view that was shared by many parents and teachers at the science fairs and schools we visited: new, educational resources for aiding teachers and students in topics such as synthetic biology are necessary and these resources don’t have to be limited to GCSE-aged students and above. In the future, we could look into creating a version of our board game suitable for younger students, and a version suitable to older students, to improve the accessibility to a wider audience.</p>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">On the subject of engaging the general public, he said that:<q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">enthusiasm is the most important thing</q>in learning more about this exciting new field of science; which is something we want to encourage in all outreach work. </p>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">Another figure we spoke to was Professor Jim Al-Khalili, who works in the field of quantum biology as well as promoting equality and diversity in science. We spoke with him about improving the interaction and collaboration between different scientific disciplines, to which he said: </p>
 +
 +
                <h5><q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>Synthetic biology is a very good example of where a multidisciplinary approach is absolutely vital</i></q></h5>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">Having a prominent public figure, like Prof. Al-Khalili, highlight the importance of synthetic biology for science and research, we hope would relieve some of the biases and stereotypes associated with the field. As <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">synthetic</q> is synonymous with <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">artificial</q> and <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">biology</q> is synonymous with <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">life</q>, we can understand why many people we have spoken to, especially shown in the visit to the Judd School, think that synthetic biology involves <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">designer life</q>. If more public figures can comment on the positive aspects of synthetic biology, then it is our hope that the public can begin to see what synthetic biology can do for each of the individual, core subjects that make up it.</p>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">On the subject of equality and diversity within science he said: </p>
 +
 +
                <h5><q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>we still have a long way to go... If 1 in 5 undergraduate physics students are female then 1 in 5 physics professors should be female - that's where the problem is and it just gets worse and worse as you go up the career ladder</i></q></h5>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">This was a view that was highlighted with many of the physics students interviewed in the equality and diversity work, as well as many of the academics. The Institute of Physics recognizes gender distribution in physics as a major problem from base to senior level and if more public figures, like Prof. Al-Khalili, and more students publicise the problem, then it could encourage more time and money to be spent on fixing the issue. </p>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">By posting the podcasts on both <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC31qfG4hnm8gRHDCkrBtAiQ">YouTube</a> and <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-237433278">Soundcloud</a>, we opened a two-way dialogue with the public, allowing them to ask questions and learn more. As well as this, we wanted to help ‘humanize’ academics and researchers by helping members of the public to gain a deeper understanding of the scientific research being done today. By reaching out to prominent researchers of academia, prominent researchers of industry and prominent public figures, we hoped to engage the public with synthetic biology and science in general at all the key areas.</p>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">We hope that by framing these important questions in modern science in a relaxed and informal manner, the general public will be much more likely to engage with these issues and learn more about research in the field of synthetic biology and other scientific disciplines.</p>
 
 
 
 
Line 821: Line 851:
 
<div id="section_4" class="link_fix"></div>
 
<div id="section_4" class="link_fix"></div>
 
<div id="contentTitle">
 
<div id="contentTitle">
−
S4
+
Meet-Ups
 
</div>
 
</div>
 
 
 +
<h4>Westminister iGEM UK meet-up 2016</h4>
 +
 +
<p id="pp">In August we travelled to Westminster for the
 +
iGEM UK annual meet-up, an opportunity to meet other UK teams,
 +
discuss our ideas and projects and have a chance to practise our
 +
presentation in front of students and academics. Although our
 +
presentation was well received we were also given very important
 +
feedback, such as why we hadn’t incorporated biosafety into our
 +
game and our module. Since then we have rectified these issues.</p>
 +
 +
<p id="pp"> Furthermore, we were given talks about
 +
the fundamentals of synthetic biology and also about
 +
conducting reliable surveys for our outreach.
 +
We also had the chance to set up collaborations with Glasgow and Edinburgh in addition to
 +
helping Warwick by directing them to schools and teams that
 +
they could collaborate with or mentor. </p>
 +
 +
<a id="Section_link" href="#section_5" style="display:block;margin:20px auto 0 auto;width:14px;"><span style="color:#47BCC2;font-size: 25px;" class="glyphicon glyphicon-menu-down" aria-hidden="true"></span></a>
 +
 +
</div>
 +
 +
<div class="col-xs-12 div_content">
 +
<div id="section_5" class="link_fix"></div>
 +
<div id="contentTitle">
 +
Student Engagement
 +
</div>
 +
 +
<h4>Science fairs and work experience students</h4>
 +
 +
<br>
 +
 +
 +
<h6>Big Bang South West</h6>
 +
 +
<p id="pp">The Big Bang South West Science Fair was one of the first places we tested BioMech. Our stall at the fair focussed on introducing students and teachers to synthetic biology and gathering information on how people perceive the field. Students were aged between 8 and 18, and there were teachers from a large variety of schools from across the South West.</p>
 +
 +
<p id="pp">For the fair, we wanted to show visitors the interdisciplinary nature of synthetic biology. We discussed how physics, chemistry, biology and engineering make up synthetic biology and demonstrated multiple applications within each of the core sciences. We created two leaflets: one which explained the basics of synthetic biology, and one which explained the iGEM competition. We made two companion powerpoint presentations to the leaflets which went in more depth, and played them on loop on two iPads on the stand. As well as this, we premiered a very basic form of our educational synthetic biology board game, for students and teachers try out. One student told us:</p>
 +
 +
<br> <br>
 +
 +
<h5><q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>BioMech is more fun than the card games I played at a
 +
card game convention in Birmingham</i></q></h5>
 +
 +
<br><br>
 +
 +
<p id="pp">BioMech was well received by children of all ages, with the younger ones particularly enjoying the simplicity of the game and the clean aesthetics, whilst the older ones took a great interest in the descriptions of all the components as well as the mechanics the game offers. The fair provided us with some honest feedback from the children on our board game that we then kept in mind when designing our final version of the now highly user friendly and interactive version of BioMech.</p>
 +
 +
<p id="pp">We also drew inspiration from the ‘Activities Booklet’ created by the William and Mary iGEM 2015 team. The sweetie DNA construction activity proved incredibly popular amongst the younger students and gave us an opportunity to talk to them about basic genetics as well as some synthetic biology ideas.</p>
 +
<br>
 +
 +
<h6>Britain Needs Scientists</h6>
 +
 +
<p id="pp">The second science fair was Britain Needs Scientists, hosted at the University of Exeter. This fair was aimed at students aged 16-18 who were interested in STEM careers. Here we focused on tying the STEM subjects into Synthetic Biology and were able to discuss more complex aspects of synthetic biology.</p>
 +
<br>
 +
 +
        <h6>Work experience students</h6>
 +
<p id="pp">Barnaby was a year 10 work experience student who joined the team from 06.06.16 to 13.06.16. As we hadn’t started working in the lab at this point, Barnaby helped with our Human Practises. Barnaby was in our target age range for BioMech, meaning his voice was invaluable in designing the game and writing out the rules - he told us from his view what would be engaging, what would be too complicated, and played a large role in shaping the game.</p>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">Juliet was a year 12 work experience student who joined the team from 18.07.16 to 29.07.16. Juliet worked predominantly with the lab team given her strong interest in Biology, and was incredibly helpful. She helped specifically with important duties like making plates and media for experiments done by the team, but was also a helping hand for early cloning strategies. Due to Juliet being with us for two weeks and joining us later in the project, she was able to integrate with the team more and engage with the project to a greater extent than Barnaby was able to. At the end of her work experience with us, she gave us a card which said:</p>
 +
 +
                <h5><q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>The past two weeks have been without question the most enjoyable and useful work experience I have had!</i></q></h5>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">Our time with Juliet was a reminder of the direct impact our work could have on school students and gave us the drive to work harder on improving education and public engagement with synthetic biology.</p>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">George was a year 12 work experience student who joined the team from 01.08.16 to 12.08.16. George, like Juliet, worked predominantly with the lab team as he had a strong interest in Biology and had A Level knowledge. George also integrated very well with the team as he was with us for two weeks, and developed a vested interest in following the project after he left us.</p>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">Our time with each work experience was very useful for both progress in the lab or human practices, and helping us better understand our target demographic. Barnaby was particularly useful, being a GCSE student himself, for feedback on early versions of the board game. His insight was supported by students at the Judd School and thus we were able to improve and better the board game from the criticism and feedback of those it might affect. Both Juliet’s and George’s help in the lab was invaluable, at a time where we were particularly busy, however their individual feedback of the human practices work, allowed us to improve and develop our work on public engagement. We therefore recommend that more iGEM teams take on work experience students as the experience itself is both mutually beneficial and very enjoyable.</p>
 +
<br>
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
<a id="Section_link" href="#section_6" style="display:block;margin:20px auto 0 auto;width:14px;"><span style="color:#47BCC2;font-size: 25px;" class="glyphicon glyphicon-menu-down" aria-hidden="true"></span></a>
 +
</div>
 +
 +
<div class="col-xs-12 div_content">
 +
<div id="section_6" class="link_fix"></div>
 +
<div id="contentTitle">
 +
Other
 +
</div>
 +
<h4>Panel Discussion</h4>
 +
              <h4>Richard Dawkins Interview</h4>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">We were very fortunate, on the 31st July 2016, to meet Professor Richard Dawkins in Exeter and managed to ask him some questions on his research and how best to engage with the public on topics within science. We filmed the interview, which can be found <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8R5Pn8U98g&index=5&list=PLAj0DDeKRB2HCW7ko-bxGiBzs6LKTlNDR">here</a>: Professor Dawkins was in Exeter as he was speaking at an behavioural ecology conference held at the university. Prof. Dawkins emphasised the importance of research in behavioural ecology as it is <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">the explanation for why we are all here</q> and described how he felt about the University of Exeter:</p>
 +
 +
                <h5><q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>I am very impressed with the University of Exeter, I haven’t been here before, it’s a lovely campus and it does need to be the most thriving university</i></q></h5>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">Prof. Dawkins went on to talk about his role as the first Charles Simonyi Professor for Public Understanding of Science and how we can best engage with the public on science. He emphasised how we have to be careful about the language we use as talking down to the public and not being clear may hinder their understanding of the topic. </p>
 +
 +
                <h5><q style="margin:auto;display:block;"><i>I tend to perhaps err on the side of just putting it out there</i></q></h5>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">An important factor that he highlighted that we, and other iGEM teams may not have considered is that encouraging the public to engage with the field might not be such an active process and may be more passive. We need to <q style="padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;">rely on the fact that the science itself is utterly fascinating</q> and the public will seek it out if they have any kind of interest in it.
 +
</p>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">This interview informed us greatly as to how to better engage with the public. The video itself (at the time of writing) has 338 views, which is the highest viewed video on our channel. We therefore believe that a good way of engaging more people with our work and with synthetic biology, is by engaging more public figures with the field. This is what we ended up doing with our Desert Island Science podcast series (shown above), by interviewing celebrity scientists like Professor Chris Lintott and Professor Jim Al-Khalili. </p>
 +
 +
                <p id="pp">Furthermore, Prof. Dawkins also gave us some really brilliant advice on how best to approach the public with such a complex and diverse field like synthetic biology. Whilst encouraging us to be clear and concise with our wording was just reassuring for us in what we have already done, the fact that he highlighted that we can be more passive in engaging the public with our field was more of a revelation because it meant that we could spend less time trying to find new, unique ways of publicising our work and more time making good quality content.</p>
 +
  
 
 

Revision as of 15:36, 8 October 2016