Introduction
Ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and providing lifelong learning opportunities for all is the fourth goal of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Our project and its implementation is guided by these goals and we have done our best to encapsulate these while going forth with our educational activities.
While educating more people about synthetic biology and opening up a bilateral dialogue about waterlogging is essential, the way in which this is done is just as important. When it comes to education, it is absolutely necessary to communicate our ideas in a proper manner. This is why, when we planned our education and outreach, we made sure it suited the target audience. You can also check out our Communication page!
Accessibility Webinar
In partnership with UBC iGEM, we held a webinar on International Accessibility to Synthetic Biology Innovations. When both teams first met, we realised that being from different countries, our experience with synthetic biology and our accessibility to resources and such, were vastly different. We had casually discussed our experiences, which is when the idea of having a discussion with experts around this topic seemed beneficial—not only for iGEM teams but also for the general public.
Synthetic biology should be accessible to everyone across the world, and the issues involved in its implementation needs to be tackled; in order for that to happen, it needs to be clarified what kinds of issues are faced in the first place. Both teams were working on climate-related food insecurity projects and we felt that synthetic biology was a good solution to this problem.
We decided to have a discussion panel with four experts: Prof. Pawan Dhar (India), Alex Kyaborongo (Uganda), Scott Pownall (Canada), and Dr. Luis De Stefano-Beltrán (Peru). They were all at different stages of their synthetic biology career and from different regions of the world; this really enriched the experience and gave an overall view of synthetic biology in the world.
In this discussion panel, we discussed topics such as barriers with respect to access to biotechnology innovations in developing countries; the panellists gave their experience in difference on network and support environment in their regions; they explored the difference in monetary support that they faced and how this impacted, and will impact, synthetic biology; how public perception ties in deeply into the acceptance of synthetic biology and policies framed around this field of research. Due to the discussion-based environment, it was easy for conversation to flourish and for our audience to pitch in. Due to the varying experiences of the panellists, every single person in the webinar learned new things about synthetic biology and its accessibility.
We promoted our webinar via email and social media as a result of which we had participants from all around the world! They were enthusiastic about engaging with the panellists and asked engaging questions such as: is the biggest barrier to developing synthetic biology in your country funding, resources (DNA/sequencing/equipment) or policy? Or do all of these circle back to funding? The panellists enjoyed speaking with the audience as well and both teams learnt along with the audience.
Apart from the knowledge which we and the audience learnt from the expert panellists, we also learnt how to organise a scientific webinar from start to finish. We spent a month planning this webinar and we feel like it really showed in the results; from contacting panellists to sketching out questions and topics to be covered, it’s a time intensive process which requires a lot of effort.
Synthetic Biology Exhibit
In collaboration with Mimamsa and the iGEM IISER Pune Team 2, we held our own Synthetic Biology Exhibit through which we had interactive games and interesting presentations. We introduced the highschoolers and undergrads to synthetic biology and iGEM. We talked about synthetic biology and its numerous real world applications as well as the work done by previous Indian iGEM Teams.
We had two engaging games planned for them: a BioBrick-based game and a roulette-style flashcard game. Our BioBrick game, The Plasmid Game, involved explaining the brilliance of BioBricks to students and having them solve a few riddles to form the gene expression system. We had a plasmid backbone along with different genes and their associated proteins (named after members of our team!) which needed to be placed together.
We physically made a model ‘plasmid’ along with different ‘parts’. We had this game designed as a riddle based game where the kids had to figure out which parts worked together and what the function was. Through this game we managed to introduce the heavy topic of gene regulatory systems: activators, repressors, basic, and composite parts!
We targeted this towards our younger audience who had never been taught regulation of gene systems; they told us that they really enjoyed the game as well as its visuals!
For our roulette-style game, Crack the Code, we had questions which revolved around synthetic biology, agriculture, and GMOs. These had no set answer, the only aim was to get people inquisitive and engaged. We got them to think of creative answers!
We were able to reach out to various schools and colleges through this event, and were able to connect and engage with them. A lot of the attendees told us that synthetic biology was either something they had never heard of, or they hadn’t known what it was capable of prior to the exhibit.
We also had take-home DNA helix models and Human Papillomavirus models made from paper as a gift for the kids. They were simple origami helices to show the base pairing that occurs in DNA and an origami version of the virus to show its structure. Our aim was to give them a visual perspective of DNA and viruses that they have always been learning about.
Sant Tukaram School
Many of the students in India do not get access to proper education and resources. Hence we wanted to take this opportunity to go to a government school named Sant Tukaram where kids come mainly for the midday meal that is provided to them as an incentive to attend classes. We held a session for around 80 students of grade 3, 4, and 5 and went through our activity book with them.
Creative activities and visual representations are great ways of teaching kids. Our activity book is made in such a way that it tells the story of the waterlogging problem through multiple short activities. The activity book starts off with the introduction of the main character—Urvi—who is a small kid similar to the age of these school kids. We explained how plants take up water from different sources, nutrients from the soil, and use up energy from the sun for its growth. We had different activities within the book which showed them the importance of water but also how excess water can be harmful. We gave them the example of how the water requirements of an elephant, a human being and an earthworm would be very different. We talked about useful insects like an earthworm that helps in agriculture. We also made them aware of different diseases that can spread from waterlogged fields and went on to talk about the actual problem of waterlogging that we are trying to solve.
Having an activity book is a very useful teaching aid as it is easy to follow along with it while a lesson is being taught. It gives children a chance to correlate what is being taught with a simplified version of the topic. Along with the slower pace of the lesson, the time they spend on doing the activities and colouring it in, ensures that they don't get bored or overwhelmed with information and retain it better.
Along with the activity book we gave them crayons, pens, pencils, and chocolates which brought a huge smile on their faces. Doing the activities with them was a lot of fun (for us as well!) and we hope that the day was as memorable for them as it was for us!
We also have a PDF version of the activity book attached here, available in English, Kannada and Malayalam. We hope that more children can benefit and learn from it!
Special Needs Children
From teaching children who have had fewer opportunities than us, we also wanted to connect with children who started off with a different set of capabilities. With the help of our volunteers, we were able to plan out lessons for children with special needs, hearing impairments, and visual impairments. Even though we weren’t able to bring these to fruition, we feel that the design of lesson plans should be known to people, whether it be for use by future iGEM teams or someone planning out lessons.
Vaishnavi Reghunath made plans for teaching children with special needs after doing extensive research. She advised us to use audio-visual cues as these are a part of multisensory learning; videos, pictures and colour-coded flash cards should play an extensive role in the lesson. Materials such as models, beads, and sticks can also lend to a better experience as hands-on activities are easier to learn with. A session which is in the format of a lecture won’t keep students engaged; they should be interactive and demand the involvement of the student. Group activities also help them learn to cooperate with other people as well as learn from each other.
Always break down topics into smaller, easier sections; it’s easy to comprehend tidbits of information rather than chunks. Instructions should be given clearly in a simple language in a clear tone. Different ideas and topics should be connected to single events or examples as this gives an overall theme to the lesson and can help students correlate ideas.
Students should also be rewarded for completing activities as well as participating via stickers, appreciative sticky notes, or small gifts.
Hearing Impaired Children
She also gave advice on interacting with people that have hearing impairments. From her, we learned that hearing aids don’t filter any sound—they simply amplify all available sounds. This is why background noises should be minimised: tiles can be covered with carpet, chairs can have rubber tips, tables should be covered with cloths, thick curtains can absorb sounds.
There should be plenty of visual aids such as pictures or flash cards. Have reading materials and transcripts available for people to follow along easily as well. If online sessions are being conducted, use live captions. However, make sure that the information is not overwhelming or else the information won’t be processed. Always point to the sections of posters or material that you are referring to reinforce the verbal message.
Another thing to keep in mind is to make yourself visible to everyone. As hearing impaired students tend to rely on lip reading, arrange desks in a circular pattern or U shape so that they can see each other and read lips. Make sure that words are articulated well and spoken at a comfortable pace. Use hands and body language to get the point across. One thing to also keep in mind is that for these children, every lesson is a language lesson; they often lack necessary language skills so use simple words and sentences. Don’t move around too much or they will have to focus their eyes on your movement as well as your lips (remember, don’t overwhelm them!)
Even better than having a lecture would be to plan out your lesson to incorporate hands-on activities. This way students won’t be fatigued with trying to follow along with a verbal lesson. It can be quite exhausting for students to try and learn through interpreters and speech reading. Along these lines, Kavya (another one of our volunteers!) planned out a theatre workshop as an engaging activity. This gives students a chance to express themselves and their thoughts in a fun and artistic manner. We wanted them to express their thoughts on environmental and water-related issues. As someone who has taken part in theatre workshops before, she knew how best to engage students in a creative manner.
Visually Impaired Children
One thing to keep in mind while interacting with visually impaired students is to keep the lessons tactile (ask them if they are comfortable with it first). She informed us to use a hand-under-hand technique to introduce objects. Ask the students to put their hands on top of yours to feel what you are doing, bring the object up and under the hands of the student. If the student throws away the activity or object, try mimicking them. Try and let them feel that you are doing something with the object before throwing it away, try elongating the time before you throw the object. Keep in mind that everyone enjoys autonomy and that it can be disconcerting for the child that their hands are being guided.
Make sure to greet the students and always vocalise where you are with respect to them; explain what is happening constantly and use very specific phrases when conveying where an object is in relation to the student. Rather than asking students if ‘they can see this?’, ask them if they can identify specific parts of the written material or if they can see some parts of the board better than the others.
While setting up the place where the lesson will be conducted, be aware of glare. Consider using adjustable lighting so that certain parts of the room are lit while others are darkened. Keep the lighting source behind the students and use special dry marker boards. Also keep study materials ready in the appropriate reading medium- Braille, large print, high contrast. If students have partial sight, ensure that high contrast colours are used in order to be easily distinguishable; exaggerate the difference in foreground and background colours.
Loyola School
Middle School is the building stage of our life where students are always eager to learn and look out for things that are fascinating to them. One of the most common professions that middle school students think of becoming is an astronomer. We worked with the Astronomy Club of our Institute—Aakashganga—to hold a session for students of grade 4th to 6th from a private school named Loyola. We wanted to take this opportunity to introduce these students and make them aware about how cool it is to become a synthetic biologist.
At their young age, it would have been difficult for them to easily comprehend synthetic biology, which is why we wanted to conduct a hands-on-activity to make the session even more engaging and fun for them. We demonstrated how to extract DNA from bananas in a home setup using ingredients like detergent; we wanted to show them that science is possible even with the simplest of resources. Through this activity we introduced them to the basic concepts of DNA, plasmids, ‘good and bad’ bacteria and how synthetic biology enables us to engineer modified organisms and give them ‘superpowers’. They got excited to know about such possibilities and hopefully we kept them wondering more about such possibilities in their curious minds!
The Bishop's Co-Ed School
Money is not the only limiting factor that deprives students from knowledge. In India, even well off highschool students don’t know about synthetic biology and its potential to solve existing problems. In addition to that, there are no highschool iGEM teams in India and part of the reason is that highschool students don’t know about iGEM at all. Hence we invited students of standard 11th and 12th from a private school named The Bishop’s Co-Ed School.
We briefly discussed synthetic biology through some cool iGEM projects from previous years in order to motivate them into the field of synthetic biology. We talked about the iGEM competition and encouraged them to participate in the highschool competition. We introduced them to the various applications of synthetic biology and explained how interdisciplinary this field can get. We also made them aware of the problem we are tackling through our project and how we have built it from scratch. This gave them a sense of how research works in real life. They seemed fascinated to know that we are doing actual research being just a few years older than them. This hyped them up and made them even more motivated.
Modern College for Science, Arts, and Commerce
In India, we currently have only 15 collegiate level teams participating in the iGEM competition. This is at odds with the number of collegiate level students we have and is mostly due to their lack of knowledge of iGEM and synthetic biology.
Even with science colleges, not all of them give students the opportunity to start working in well-equipped labs, quite often students learn about science in a more theory-oriented fashion. Their practical exposure to laboratories and the application of the science they learn can be limited. This is why we wanted to speak to college students about our project, iGEM, and how even at this stage—where we ourselves are learning about science—we can take up this ambitious project and try to develop it as best as we can.
We presented our project to roughly a hundred students at undergraduate and postgraduate level. As our audience was collegiate level, we went into depth regarding our experiments as well as our computational models. We discussed our choice of chassis, the constructs we prepared, and the science behind our models. We spoke about the different laboratory techniques we followed in our project.
We hope they learned as much from us as we did from them. The interactions we had with them were deeply satisfying, with many of them expressing their interest in our project as well as their fascination with it. They were keen to know more about our project including how we planned to take it forward and every single aspect of our project.
We also discussed the entrepreneurial aspect of our project. We even had a delightful conversation with one of the students who was from a farming background. He told us about his idea for developing waterlogging resistance by cross-breeding crops. He had very interesting stories about his farm and their experience with waterlogging. Given his interest in the idea, we hope we inspired him to go forward with his idea and develop it further!
Waterlogging and Crop Breeding Lines
For people to tackle a problem, they need to know of its existence in the first place. Most people hear the word ‘waterlogging’ and immediately think of flooded fields. While this is definitely a big problem, the state of waterlogging where the soil is saturated with water is what also poses a great threat.
This is why we invited S M Nuruzzuman Manik to speak about waterlogging and how he has been working on developing waterlogging-tolerant barley crop lines. In his informative talk, he went into detail about what actually constitutes waterlogging as well as the causes of waterlogging which include incorrect irrigation practices.
Manik is from the University of Tasmania, a region which experiences large amounts of rainfall and waterlogging. Prior to his work in Tasmania, he worked in China and tried to develop waterlogging-resistant barley crops via synthetic biology. He found out that the barley lines were not that stable in terms of maintaining their newly obtained resistance. This is why he switched over to cross-breeding lines of barley crops.
He prepared a very clear and pleasing presentation for the talk. He spoke about his experience with waterlogging in Tasmania, giving us an idea of how other regions in the world are also affected by waterlogging.
Azospirillum and its Niche Adaptations
As a final wrap to our education and communication with the public, we had a talk by Dr. Gladys Alexandre who was kind enough to help us with our project as well as help us with our outreach initiatives.
Dr. Gladys is from the University of Tennesse and is one of the leading experts who has worked extensively on A. brasilense. She spoke about the usefulness of A. brasilense for agriculture and how its association with the rhizosphere is extremely beneficial for plants. She discussed in detail the mechanisms by which this bacteria promotes plant growth as well as its effects on crops. She further went to talk about the niche adaptations of this organism such as chemotaxis and aerotaxis, which is what she currently works on. These are what aid Azospirillum in being advantageous for plants by keeping it in close proximity with the rhizosphere.
She also discussed using Azospirillum as a chassis organism considering how beneficial it is for plants. Gladys also spoke about something we as a team had been facing: the difficulties in using A. brasilense as a chassis organism. This is why we also made an Azospirillum handbook to help guide people on how to handle this amazing organism!
Her talk is something that would have been hard for most people to come by. A. brasilense is not a common chassis despite its wonderful benefits. As such, for people interested in working on synthetic biology and agriculture, this is an excellent choice of chassis. However, given how few people work with this organism, understanding the intricate details of it would be much harder.
You can find out more about it on our Contributions page.
