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During our initial discussions about how best to communicate information about synthetic biology to the public, we concluded that the best audience to start with would be high school students who currently study biology and/or chemistry at a year 10 level or above. The Australian curriculum does not currently cover any aspects of synthetic biology with a substantial focus on more general units of study. It was our intention to develop a program that served as an introduction to the scientific concepts in a way that would be memorable and well received by the students.
We found projects that drew on concepts learnt by the students in their high school biology lessons as much as possible to make it easier for them to grasp. For the purposes of these presentations with focused on the year 10 curriculum since they were the lowest threshold we set for our audience. We looked into the Living World topic of the Stage 4 and Stage 5 curriculum and the area of studies we looked into are specified in Table 1.
As part of our education outreach program, our team visited two local schools, Strathfield Girls High School, and East Hill Boys High School in Sydney, where we engaged the students in various activities to further their interest in synthetic biology as well as biotechnology.
The presentation we created focused on a series of synthetic biology projects currently underway around the world and zoomed in on aspects that were relevant to high school biology content. This included processes such as the Haber process as well as DNA replication and cell biology. To heighten their interest further as well as to engage them in a fun activity we created a Kahoot! quiz aimed at identifying Sci-fi movies and other pop culture examples with instances of biotechnology. This included questions on movies like ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’, ‘X-Men’ and others. To motivate the students to actively listen and engage with the activities, we gave away prizes for the winners of the Kahoot!
To make the questions more fun we also included a segment called “Real or Made-Up?” wherein we introduced syn bio projects that the students had never heard of or thought to be possible. We found that this segment had the best response from the student in terms of appreciation for the program as they immersed themselves in learning about niche areas of study within the biomolecular and microbiological world. We received a lot of questions from the students, particularly when it came to topics that they had touched on in their classes (see Table 1 for more details).
The program was well received in both schools with positive feedback from both students and staff alike. We were invited back to the schools for any further initiatives that we had planned since the students benefited from learning about science through the lens of synthetic biology and biotechnology. You can find our presentation slides here.
| Stage | Topic | Content | Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Living World | LW1 There are differences within and between groups of organisms; classification helps organise this diversity (ACSSU111) |
d. identify some examples
of groups of micro-organisms e. outline the structural features used to group living things, including plants, animals, fungi and bacteria |
| LW2 Cells are basic units of living things and have specialised structures and functions (ACSSU149) |
a. identify that living
things are made of cells f. identify that different types of cells make up the tissues, organs, and organ systems of multicellular organisms |
||
| LW3 Multicellular organisms contain systems of organs that carry out specialised functions that enable them to survive and reproduce (ACSSU150) |
a. identify the material
required by multicellular organisms for the processes of
respiration and photosynthesis b. explain that the systems in multicellular organisms work together to provide cell requirements, including gases, nutrients and water, and to remove cell wastes |
||
| LW4 Scientific knowledge changes as new evidence becomes available, and some scientific discoveries have significantly changes people’s understanding of the world (ACSHE119, ACSHE134) |
a. research an example of
how changes in scientific knowledge have contributed to finding
a solution to a human health issue b. recount how evidence from a scientific discovery has changed understanding and contributed to solving a real world problem eg animal or plant disease, hygiene, food preservation, sewage treatment or biotechnology |
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| 5 | LW2 Conserving and maintaining the quality and sustainability of the environment requires scientific understanding of interactions within, the cycling of matter and the flow of energy through ecosystems. | b. outline using examples how matter is cycled through ecosystems such as nitrogen (ACSSU176) | |
| LW3 Advances in scientific understanding often rely on developments in technology, and technological advances are often linked to scientific discoveries (ACSHE158, ACSHE192) |
c. identify that genetic
information is transferred as genes in the DNA chromosomes e. describe, using examples, how developments in technology have advanced biological understanding, eg vaccines, biotechnology, stem-cell research and in-vitro fertilisation f. discuss some advantages and disadvantages and disadvantages of the use and applications of biotechnology, including social and ethical considerations |
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We aimed to reach a wide range of audiences in our pursuit of scientific communication and for this reason we chose Instagram as our primary social media platform. We decided that we wanted to publish a series of weekly posts which educated the public on an aspect of synthetic biology. We thought it would be interesting to introduce lesser known pathogens and provide some information about them in a series we called “Pathogen of the Week” Through this series we introduced viral, bacterial and fungal pathogens with information about their habitats, infection and prevalence.
Over the course of the series we were able to publish 6 pathogens which have been classified in Table 2.
| Name | Classification |
|---|---|
| Brucella abortus | Bacteria |
| Listeria monocytogenes | Bacteria |
| Cytomegalovirus | Virus |
| Clostridium botulinum | Bacteria |
| Escherichia coli | Bacteria |
| Puccinia graminis | Fungi |
We asked questions in the captions to encourage communication with the audience. While we did not have many interactions with viewers of the page through these posts, we believe that in the future, a greater focus on sharing them across platforms would be useful. An example of one our posts can be seen below.
Through these posts we were able to provide ‘bite-sized’ chunks of information on a weekly basis.
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We collaborated with the McGill, Queen's, Cornell and Costa Rica iGEM teams in their joint Bacteria Book initiative where we provided information on a bacterium of interest. Since we were already planning on broadening both our education about bacteria as well as the scope of collaboration with other teams, when the teams reached out to us, we gladly accepted.
We decided to provide information on the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae, a plant pathogen. Through our research we provided information on aspects of the bacterium such as its metabolism, nutritional needs, common habitats, and other interesting facts.
This information will be compiled by the three teams and published in their book along with the information from other participating teams. We hope that through this initiative we are able to share with the world the interesting world of bacteria. We are very grateful for the teams for providing us with this opportunity and we look forward to seeing the published copy of the book at the jamboree.
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As part of our efforts in communicating science to a wide and diverse variety of audiences across the world, we collaborated with iGEM KU Leuven on their lead podcast project, which was an introduction to how scientists overcame problems in their lives. It was an opportunity for us to learn the difficult histories of some of the most successful scientists.
We chose to introduce Peter Charles Doherty, who is an Australian immunologist and Nobel laureate (Physiology or Medicine in 1996). We learnt through his story not to be afraid of change, but to be willing to try and stick to what we are passionate about. At the same time, we also gained the life stories of different biologists and learnt about their attitudes and wisdom when faced with life choices and difficulties.
Through this initiative we were able to share the stories of numerous such scientists who often go unnoticed but have had an enormous impact in the world of science.
The iGEM KU Leuven team were kind enough to provide a link to our segment in their podcast, available here.
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We wrote and illustrated a comic book in collaboration with iGEM Tec Chihuahua. This was part of their education initiative wherein they compiled comics about the projects of teams around the world. This was a unique and fun way to explain complex scientific solutions to a layman audience since it relied more on storytelling and less on technical terminology.
We created mascots to represent our delivery mechanism and target protein in emulation of old cartoons and comic books. In the comic we follow the story of a wheat stem, ‘Walter Wheat’ that gets the help of our other mascot ‘Betty Bottle’ in targeting and defeating cereal rust, which is what our project is based on.
With this we aimed to reach a new audience overseas whilst maintaining the accessibility of our project so it would be easily understood by non-English speakers and younger audiences. This is in line with the strong visual design and communication our team has employed to better communicate our project. We also posted the comic to our social media and included it within our science magazine, further extending its reach and accessibility.
We would like to thank the iGEM Tec Chihuahua for giving us an opportunity to explain our project to a wide audience in a creative and unconventional way.
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We created an online science magazine to share with the students within our university as well as with the greater audience in Sydney. Our aim was to compile interesting articles that would heighten public interest in and understanding of synthetic biology. Through the integration of scientific articles as well as engaging activities we sought to appeal to a diverse age range while still maintaining our goal of education.
Since our target audience was largely students who don’t study science at university level, we kept the magazine short and concise. We reached out to academics and PhD students within our own university community for interviews about their research. These interviews were written up as articles without too much jargon.
In an effort to make the magazine more accessible to people not just within our university community but also around the world, we reached out to several other iGEM teams for their help in populating the magazine. We also requested that the articles they submit be translated in the language most predominantly used within their country. We would like to sincerely thank the iGEM at William and Mary, iGEM Groningen, iGEM Crete and iGEM IONIS for their participation in our initiative.
To ensure that the magazine was entertaining for a broad range of ages, we also included fun activities such as colouring pages based on the characters created for the UNSW teams project as well as crossword puzzles and the comic we created for iGEM Tec Chihuahua. All of these activities and additions were centred around the theme of biology which helped us keep the goal for the magazine consistent.
You can read our science magazine
here.
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