Education

– Nelson Mandela

Introduction:  

Although the term “synthetic biology” was coined by Stéphane Leduc in the year 1910, it took nearly a century to develop the field for real world implementation. For the last two decades the field of synthetic biology or syn-bio in short, has seen blazing fast acceleration in research and commercial applications, accompanied by enormous support of the government and curiosity of the younger generation.  

“The potential for synthetic biology and biotechnology is vast; we all have an opportunity to create the future together.”- Ryan Bethencourt  

Where the developed nations have well-established publicity and research infrastructure for syn-bio, India is still trying to reconcile discrete efforts of research and establish a network to draw young minds to this field. We, as a part of team iGEM IISc, sought to not only spread the knowledge about synthetic biology but also foster a culture of collaboration where people from all spheres - iGEM teams, researchers, educators, and science communicators can come together and contribute to “creating the future together.”  

Overview: 

Science communication is a great tool to spread knowledge and awareness, be it about a novel field like synthetic biology or a global problem like climate crisis. But to ‘educate’ and create an impact, it needs to be improvised and implemented based on the needs of the people. This essentially makes it a ‘two-way’ dialogue. Therefore, our moto throughout our education journey was - 

“Reach the roots, reach the unreached, reflect-refine-reinforce” 

Reach the roots:

Be it syn-bio or any other field, education can start only by nurturing budding minds and kindling inspiration and enthusiasm. Thus, we targeted students from different age groups and tried to expose them to science and synthetic biology at various levels with interactive games and engrossing discussions.  

Reach the unreached:

“Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world” – Louis Pasteur 

We realised that in the Indian context, educational outreach through social media, targeted talk series or quizzes fails to reach a huge section of general public who are unfamiliar with the advancements in modern science. Therefore, we tried utilizing mass communication systems like radio to spread knowledge and awareness about synthetic biology.  

Most importantly, we tried to find ways to educate students and general public from rural areas (which contributes to around 65% of the total population of India) about synthetic biology in a hope to see more students joining this field to solve their local issues and contribute to the world. We also reached out to the specially abled students and individuals and presented the bouquet of knowledge of synthetic biology in a convenient and accessible way. This was met with great appreciation from the community. We tried to spread our educational material across the world with the help of other iGEM teams in efforts to illuminate as many people as possible.

Reflect-refine-reinforce: 

In each step of our journey, we executed our plans on the ideals of mutual learning. We received feedback from professional educators and science communicators at various stages, and continuously revised our content and ideas based on their input. We also made sure to follow Human Behavioural Research laws and ethical standards laid down by our country and World Health Organisation (WHO), ensuring safe and proper execution of our education initiatives.  

Parts: 

To channelise our educational content, we divided our initiatives into 5 main parts. Within each part we tried to reach out to all sections of people through diverse means.  

Rural Community: 

1. Visit to villages and discussion sessions with rural people: 

To assess the awareness and knowledge about science and synthetic biology among common people and students, we decided to visit a village and talk to the authorities.  

• At Maharashtra, our volunteers discussed the current education situation with the elderly and the local head of Pimparkhed village. We found out that although there is constant support from the government to educate more children, exposure to science, research in science hasn’t really progressed much. 
• Our volunteers went to a rural school- Zilla Parishad School in Pimparkhed. Conversation with the school’s headmaster and students revealed that the students are not proficient in English and conveying concepts of synthetic biology without a well written material in their regional language was quite difficult. Still, we saw great enthusiasm when we talked to them about synthetic biology and its applications that can potentially solve their local problems of clean water, food, and agriculture.  

• To understand better how we can educate rural people on a large scale we decided to discuss the situation with stakeholders working in the decision-making process and thus, approached Umesh Patil - local Member of Parliament (MP) and Rajesh Patil – Commissioner of Municipal Corporation, Pimpri Chinchwad, Maharashtra. From discussions with them, we realised that educating through small gatherings or individual sessions can stir up scientific fascination among rural students but to create a strong, lasting impact we should look into how we can incorporate synthetic biology in their high school education curriculum itself. For reaching rural people more easily, they suggested use of radio and regional newspapers as locals are more familiar with such communication systems. 

2. Preparation of syn-bio educational package for rural communities: 

• Our visit to rural areas made us realize that we need a more elementary education package which can be shared to anyone interested in synthetic biology even if they are not inclined towards science.  
• To get an expert opinion on our idea we had a discussion session with Dr. Bitasta Das (Author, Educator and Senior Editor at Office of Communications, IISc). She suggested delivering our content in a fun, engaging way, like a story.  

With the amazing inputs we had recieved, our team prepared the syn-bio handbook: "Sync". We kept the language lucid and the content engaging in the 5 chapters that built the picture of synthetic biology from scratch - 

Chapter 1: Biomolecules: The Advent of Life
Chapter 2: DNA: The Notebook 
Chapter 3: Synthetic Biology: The Coolest Gadget 
Chapter 4: Ethics and Public Values 
Chapter 5: iGEM! 

Translation and distribution of Sync: 

To ensure that rural people from different regions of India can read the handbook, we approached other Indian iGEM teams. They translated Sync and the feedback form in their local language. Their suggestions during the process were invaluable.  

With the help of other collaborators, we produced translations of Sync in three official UN languages - Arabic, Chinese and Spanish. All the translations put together allow us to cater to almost fifty percent of the world's population directly through their native languages.  

Here's a list of the translations of Sync - 

Click the links to access the pdfs.

3. Distribution and Workshop with Prayoga Institute of Education Research:  

To test the education package, we collaborated with Prayoga Institute of Education Research where students from depreived sections are nurtured and exposed to scientific research. We sent our education package to their education board for reviewing and an expert from their committee – Pratistha Agarwal gave us immensely helpful feedback for imporving the design and content.

We shared the final handbook electronically with all the rural students associated with their institute. To increase the productivity and impact we will hold a 4-hour workshop with the high-school students on 15th October.  

Our team discussing the logistics of workshop with Pratistha Agarwal, Prayoga Institute of Education Research 

Here is the detailed list of activities (with intervals):

1. Observe your surroundings: Activity where we divide the students in two groups and go with them to a) a nearby urban locality, b) a nearby forest area uninfluenced by human activities and ask them to observe the differences in the diversity of flora and fauna. 
2. An analysis of the observations made in 1 and follwing it into a discussion on urbanisation and climate change.  
3. Discussion about iGEM and iGEM IISc- our project on climate crisis.  
4. Synthetic biology presentation with an interactive session involving a paper puzzle game on parts of synthetic biology. 
5. Synthetic biology ideation session on problems faced by students in real life and ways to solve them using syn-bio. 
6. Synthetic biology interactive quiz and taking feedback from students on the rural package. 

In Progress- 

After analysing the feedbacks from rural students from Prayoga Institute of Education Research, our next goal is to incorporate synthetic biology in state education curriculum.

We held a meeting with Ramachandran R (Director of Pre-University Education Board, Karnataka) to discuss this possibility. He informed that although information about genes, genetic engineering etc. are already in the curriculum of school students, synthetic biology in particular is not being explored. He suggested focusing on the applications and opportunities and designing content which can be looked into in detail with the help of the Karnataka state education board and can be implemented in future after proper discussion and investigation. 

Megha with Ramachandran R, Director of Pre-University Education Board, Karnataka

We will meet Ramachandran again with the reviews of the students and the Prayoga committee to discuss possibilities of incorporating synthetic biology in high school curriculum in rural public schools.  

Public: 

1. Interactions using All India Radio: 

We contacted Shivkumar AR, a retired All India Radio Employee, who helped us in contacting the communication head of the Karnataka state, and also gave insights on how to employ radio as a means of education. Through him, we contacted RJ Chaitra who helped us in finalizing the event. On 11th October 2022, 3pm-4pm IST, she informally interviewed our team and asked us about the importance, applications and safety aspects of syn-bio. We also spoke about our project and spread awareness about global problems and how novel fields like synthetic biology hold the promise to solve them. We also had a small quiz session with the audience about the importance of biosafety and biosecurity where we received responses from all over Karnataka. 

Team iGEM on All India Radio for Karnataka region

2. Pravega Workshop:  

Presentation on research in synthetic biology  

We held a workshop during Pravega, the Sci-Tech and Cultural Fest of IISc. We interacted with the participants, and introduced them to the idea of synthetic biology. We had collected the problems that top 5 teams of 2021 had tackled and asked the general audience to come up with their own unique solutions. We then talked to them on how the teams had approached the problems using synthetic biology and asked for their inputs. The audience showed overwhelming interest and we thoroughly enjoyed the interactions. 

We closed the session with an online talk by Mr. Onkar Date, Communications Head, iGEM Indian League. He discussed how to become a part of the iGEM community, its significance and he provided relevant contacts and encouraged them to participate in iGEM Indian League. 

Ideation session of Pravega Workshop

3. Outreach through social media:  

We reached out to the general public over social media through a mascot designing contest to spark their interests in synthetic biology and our project. 

Audiobook and Sign-Language Translation of Sync: 

Knowledge belongs to humanity and the desire to learn is not bound by any physical disabilities. In our efforts, we sought ways to reach out to specially-abled people. We contacted institutions working for their welfare to explore how we could spread the knowledge of synthetic biology to them.

We contacted lecturer Kripa from the Oceania organisation which is dedicated to educate deaf students. She helped us understand the needs of physically challenged students and what efforts could we take. She arranged a team to prepare a sign-language translation of our education package. She also worked with us distribute the translated material to various schools for the specially-abled in Bangalore. We are also in discussion with the her for the development of a comprehensive audiobook of Sync. 

Students:        

1. Primary school students (Age group 7-10 yrs):  

We tried to make our activities as interactive and fun as possible to pique their interest.  

• A survey was taken, and interactive sessions were conducted in which we tried to gauge their interest and understanding of global warming.
• Picture story telling: Our primary goal was to get kids interested in climate crisis. We wrote a story where a group of children are affected by rapidly changing environment and they grow up to be concerned scientists and try contributing to solving climate crisis using synthetic biology.  

The students loved our session and voiced concerns about climate crisis.

Picture story telling

Story of solving climate crisis through synthetic biology

• We also gave them 'connect the dots' games and colouring worksheets. One of the grades surprised us with a lovely picture-story about a superhero bacteria trying to solve global problems. 

Students with our team showcasing the story embedded in the connect with dots

Connect the dots

• Play with clay and build a plasmid 

Students playing with clay

• We distributed handbands that our team made, as mementos of our visit.  

Handband for students

2. Middle school students (Age group 11-14 yrs): 

After our survey and feedback from primary school kids and teachers, we realised the story and the concepts are a bit advanced for primary school kids. We mellowed down the content for future visits to primary schools and shifted focus to educate middle school kids who were enthusiastic and capable of understanding the material better. Similar to primary school visit, we conducted surveys before and after our interactions to improve our material further. 

Middle school students wearing handbands

Survey Sheet Document Class 6

3. High school students (Age group 15-18 yrs):  

A pre-presentation survey was taken to assess their understanding and awareness about synthetic biology and climate crisis. 

Pre-presentation survey

The students were then given a presentation connecting their elementary biology knowledge to synthetic biology, talking about its applications and the inclusion of public values. We introduced them to the iGEM community and encouraged them to form teams and participate in the iGEM High School Competitions. We also conducted a quiz at the end to check the effectiveness of the presentation. We got the students to think about synthetic biology through probing but intuitive questions. The students were also encouraged to try and come up with a syn-bio solution for a problem they want to address. 

We also gave out pamphlets which had information about our project and our contacts. 

Presentation on synthetic biology for high school students

Our team with teachers and students holding the pamphlets

Synbio Pamphlet

Quantitative survey of high school visit 

We received 185 responses where around 70% of the students demonstrated understanding of the presentation material. This tells us that our material has a good pedagogical value but needs improvements to make it easier to understand for more students. 

Results of survey taken after HS visit

After Survey Sheet

Top 10 students from each of the schools were selected through the quiz and they were invited participate in a workshop that was held in IISc.  

Post Presentation Survey

In the workshop, we introduced the students to basic wet lab techniques like pipetting, plate visualization and experiments like transformation, agarose gel electrophoresis, etc. Then the students were introduced to research in synthetic biology. The theory behind the experiments was also explained in detail.  

Handout of lab workshop

Experiments and presentation during the workshop at IISc

Feedback from workshops 

The students appreciated the workshop a lot and all of them said that they were taking something back with them. The response was highly motivating and we went on to conduct another workshop and presentation at Pravega, the college fest of Indian Institute of Science. This garnered huge interest as well and we had an engaging idea session towards the end.

Future Prospects: 

Interactive discussion session with schools for autistic students:

During our discussion with Dr. Bitasta Das, she also suggested we reach out to specially abled students, in particular students with autism. With her help we contacted Mrs. Vasundhara, who uses art as a way to communicate to such students. We are exploring how we can educate such students in a simplistic yet interactive way and make them interested in synthetic biology. To implement the education material, we’ll be collaborating with Ashankura (Bel Special School) where we’ll be reviewing the material with the help of the skilled teachers and then educate middle school students about syn-bio. 

Inference:  

"Human Practices is the study of how your work affects the world, and how the world affects your work." — Peter Carr, Director of Judging at iGEM competition  

2. Responsibility: 

We made sure that all the content prepared and distributed are community safe and cannot be misused and the language is carefully reviewed so that it does not negatively affecting anyone. We also made sure that the physical material we used during surveys and discussion session are environment friendly and sustainable.  

3. Responsiveness: 

Throughout the education process we made sure that there is an iterative loop between implementation and improvement for each part and we used feedback forms (quantitative data) or personal opinions and suggestions (qualitative data) to develop upon our initial ideas, took professional help to verify the feasibility and impact of all parts. We also ensured that each part is always open to improvement and based on the inputs, other iGEM teams or educators can easily build upon it. We explored all possibilities of mutual learning and together we “closed the loop”. 

Reference:  

(i)  iGEM Human Practices guides: https://responsibility.igem.org/human-practices/what-is-human-practices  

(ii)   iGEMers’ Guide to Future: https://live.flatland.agency/12290417/rathenau-igem/  

Communication