One of the main objectives of our team is to communicate our project to the rest of the world and to educate them about what we do and about synthetic biology. To be able to communicate our project we have done multiple activities to explain everything that is in our hands. We wanted to reach all kinds of people, of all ages so we did projects adjusted to each age.
For younger kids we did workshops to explain to them basic knowledge about biology and about plants. So we gave them drawings of laboratory instruments such as flasks, pipettes, or beakers and drawings of the plants we work with as the Nicotiana benthamiana. We also gave them playdough to make biobricks so we could explain to them their purpose and what they are in a more active way. We did other interactive activities such as a walk in the Galaxy Garden!
For people around our age we did something completely different. As we knew high schoolers had knowledge in biology we decided to make a presentation about the purpose of our project and we got into detail about what we did in the laboratory and what it is to work in a project for the iGEM competition.
For adults we tried to approach it from a different perspective. To make it interesting and entertaining, we opened our workplace door to everyone that wanted to learn about our project. We did both an initial presentation, similar to the one we did for the high schoolers, and we added a tour of our working space where they could ask us questions about anything they wanted. It went pretty well so we think it was a really effective way to transmit everything we wanted to.
And last but not least, we also explained our project to elderly people that live in residences. To do this, we decided that the best way would be to make it interactive. To do so, we made some banners where we explained different things about our project. This way they approached us easier. It was nice to see how interested they were in want we were explaining and how they had a lot of questions!
Apart from educating the people around us, we have also learned a lot by going to different talks about varied themes such as Santiago Ramon y Cajal and his life or about Glass and its uses in science. As we thought that they were really interesting and nurturing and they could help us understand a little more about the scientific world and all of its branches apart from biology. Apart from attending these expositions and learning about him, our instructors, Sarah and Nahia, gave some expositions about Ramon y Cajal to the public and also presented our project and what we do, as both us and Ramon y Cajal are connected by our place of birth, Navarre.
