Introduction
During the course of our project we realized that the place where our project fits into society is in the spreading of knowledge between different parts of society. Our goal was to show people, in an educational and inspirational way what we have learned, so that they would receive the opportunity to change, as we have done. In order to do this with the maximal possible outreach, several different channels were used to target both individuals and citizens, clothing stores, and the government.Content
- Design
- Key Notes
- Elementary Schools
- High Schools
- Universities
- Safety
- Visiting Schools
- Elementary Schools
- High Schools
- Universities
- Social Media
- Instagram takeovers
- Physical Events
- Safety
- Clothing exchange
- Posters
- Outreach to Clothing Companies
- Outreach to the Government
- The Transcriptome
Design
When visiting schools to present our project, there were several key aspects that we had in mind to include while designing our lectures. Since one of our primary goals where to reach out to students of different ages there also had to be significant modification of the material to fit a differing audience.
The key notes we had in mind while designing our lectures, besides spreading knowledge about the textile industry, were.
- 1: The lack of communication regarding the future use and possibilities of synthetic biology
- 2: The lack of purpose and concrete ideas of what to work with in the future that is often displayed by primarily adolescent students in theoretical educations.
- 3: The importance and rewards of being creative in problem solutions as promoted by the iGEM competition.
- 4: Allow them to do a practical and fun experiment where some of the features of our synthetic biology project became clearly visible.
To round of all these presentations a simple laboration was also conducted where the students were given the opportunity to extract DNA from different fruits and to discuss. Since DNA and synthetic biology was a big part of our lecture, this was done in order for the students to in a fun and practical way get acquainted with DNA the building block of all life. To see the PowerPoint we used, click here.
In order to integrate these three aspects, the presentations were designed in the following way.
When presenting for elementary school students:
To adapt the presentation to younger students the focus was instead laid on the contents of science and research. In order to do this in an interactive way we first organized a workshop regarding the question of what science was where a lot of stereotypes were regarded. Then it was presented to them all in a playful experiment about stealing cookies, that science, in reality is nothing more than a process of experimentation to acquire knowledge. This would lead to the conclusion that every student in the classroom was themselves in a way, also a scientist This was done in order to invoke curiosity and interest for science, rather than fear and stereotypical images.After this a short lecture introducing DNA as a blueprint and a small glimpse into what since in the field of biology looks like. This was then followed by a presentation of our project where the emphasis was once again put on solving the problems of the future using tools that could be found everywhere, namely bacteria.
Once again this was done in schools were our team members had attended but since the age gap was much greater, a bigger emphasis was laid on inspiration rather than concrete images of what the students could be doing in the future. To see the PowerPoint we used, click here.
When presenting for high school students in science programs:
The core of the presentation was centred around spreading information about synthetic biology as a problem solver of the future and speak in overview about some of the many possible implementations in the future. This was done in schools where our team-members had previously attended. In this way we could start the lectures on the following note “But why is it important for you to listen to a presentation about synthetic biology? The real reason that we are here today to present, is to show you, as high school students interested in biology and science, and give you a clearer understanding about what you could be working with in the future”. We also combined that with some discussions regarding how many knew what they were doing in the future, which was always a very small percentage. We also tied it together with the presentation of our project by focusing on the educational roots of our teammate who had previously attended the school where we were presenting. The idea was to first puzzle students with the question of what they wanted to do in the future, then amaze them with the possible applications of synthetic biology, then show the creative aspects of our projects use of this while informing about some of the solutions to the environmental issue and finally to tie the knot by connecting this to the person who had previously attended that very school. This was done to ignite an idea about the possibilities in the young students. This person in iGEM used to study here, in the same position as me, and now they are doing this amazing project. If they can do it, then I sure can do it too. To see the PowerPoint we used, click here.When presenting for University students:
The goal was more to promote iGEM in general and to present the true ethical aspects of both our project and GMO, and how we worked to tackle it, but also to delve a bit deeper into the ethical disaster that is the sustainability and working conditions for the producers in the textile industry. Although we had already discussed the ethical aspects of our project with people within the iGEM community (SynthEthics, see Collaborations) and with companies implicated in the recycling process at different levels, we felt that we could gain valuable feedback from other biotech students at Chalmers, and therefore may relate differently to the applications of synthetic biology. To see the PowerPoint we used, click here.Safety
When presenting in person at local schools, we have followed the existing guidelines for disease limiting as they were presented by the government and the school board. Several of the schools have implemented systems were only certain grades are present at one time. Our wish was to reach out to as many of the students in as many age groups as possible, and even though this possibility was limited by these measures, the ability to prevents disease to spread across grades remains, in today's global pandemic, by far the most important step and our largest concern. Several lectures were also held over zoom to further minimize the risk of spreading disease.Visiting Schools
Through our work we presented at four different schools and in total to eight different classes from elementary schools all the way to university classes.
Elementary schools
We also had the fantastic opportunity to connect more with younger students by our visit to the elementary school Ytterbyskolan. Here we presented to two classes studying their final year in elementary school (Figure 1). To see the energy and the passion of the students were quite wonderful! We had several students stay in the lunch break to ask questions (Figure 1). Here we learned well about the creativity that comes from younger minds and it inspired us further through our work.
Figure 1. The pictures when we went to the elementary school Ytterbyskolan.
These are the pictures from when we went to one of the elementary schools in Gothenburg,
Ytterbyskolan. First picture is when students came around the presenter to ask more questions about
our projects during their lunch time (For privacy reasons, this picture has been blurred). Other two
pictures are when we were doing presentation.
High schools
During our work we visited two high schools, Polhemsgymnasiet (Figure 2) and Mimers hus gymnasium (Figure 3). At these places we had the opportunity to present for four classes who were studying their second year of natural science and one class studying their third year. At Mimers hus gymnasium we also organized a 90-minute presentation and discussion forum for a class which had specialized into sustainability. There we had the wonderful chance to really delve into the depth and tell of and discuss what we have learned about sustainability and the textile industry through our Human Practises work. Many valuable points where raised which are displayed below.- Many times, people might not want to learn more about the lack of sustainability and ethics in the textile industry since it gives them guilt
- Raising the prices of new clothing might not be popular but many people would hopefully accept if they knew the impact it could have on sustainability
- Spreading information is of key importance in order for sustainability to become a reality
Many times, people might not want to learn more about the lack of sustainability and ethics in the textile industry since it gives them guilt
Raising the prices of new clothing might not be popular but many people would hopefully accept if they knew the impact it could have on sustainability
Spreading information is of key importance in order for sustainability to become a reality
These were compiled and used when designing our further outreach which you can find in the Integration section.
Figure 2. The pictures when we went to a highs school, Polhemsgymnasiet.
These are the pictures from when we went to one of the high schools in Gothenburg, Polhemsgymnasiet.
Left two pictures are when we were doing presentation. Right top picture is when students were doing
DNA extraction experiments and bottom is the white board during discussion of the experiments.
These are the pictures from when we went to one of the high schools in Gothenburg, Polhemsgymnasiet. Left two pictures are when we were doing presentation. Right top picture is when students were doing DNA extraction experiments and bottom is the white board during discussion of the experiments.
Figure 3. The pictures when we went to a high school, Mimers hus gymnasium
These are the pictures from when we went to one of high schools in Gothenburg, Mimers hus gymnasium.
Left picture is
when we were doing presentation. Right picture is when we were doing presentation through zoom to
another class which we
could not attend physically because of the current Covid-19 situation.
Universities
We were also specially invited to guest-lecture through Zoom in the Ethics in Biotechnology course in the Biotechnology master program at Chalmers University of Technology. The vast amount of issues that come with today’s textile industry were presented, followed by a short project description. Once the subject matter regarding the complications of the textile industry had been presented there was an ethics discussion held between the attending students. Technological and societal considerations were both included in the discussion.At the end, the students were divided into smaller groups and asked to write down their thoughts about the ethical aspects discussed and any other perspectives they might think of. We got a range of different questions and comments that were later additionally integrated in the human practices part, some of which were delivered on a virtual whiteboard as in Figure 4. They pointed out initiatives already taken by different clothing companies and recommended that we look into their ideas of how to reduce the textile waste. Societal aspects like what happens to the textile factory workers if the textile consumption is reduced was also discussed, as well as several other relevant ethical aspects. Many important parts of these discussions where compiled and used when writing the questions and further outreach under Integration.
The presentation slides can be found here
Figure 4. Virtual whiteboard from ethics course Zoom discussion session
After presenting the project and different ethical aspects of it in the ethics course at Chalmers,
the students were asked to write any thoughts or feedback they might have. Several valid points were
brought to our attention about ongoing projects within sustainable fashion and different societal
aspects. The one comment marked in red was extra influential and gave us the idea to contact Nudie
Jeans, something that turned out to be one of our more influential contacts.
We also have an additional, upcoming presentation in Chalmers university of sustainability for first year students of biotech. This presentation will cover the entirety of our project and be centred around recruiting future iGEM teams from our school. Stay tuned for the results!
Social media
In our work we used several modes of communication of presenting both our lab work and our Human practise outreach concerning educating people about the reality of the textile industry.
Instagram takeovers
We also participated in a weeklong Instagram takeover with the established sustanability promotor Students for sustainability. In this takeover, aimed at students that already share our interest in sustainability, we presented in detail every part of our project. Here we explained synthetic biology, presented ourselves and why everyone should choose to participate in iGEM. We explained un-recyclable materials, the colossal nature of the textile industry and many of its hazards to both humans and the environment. But most importantly we presented many of our best tips regarding how everyone in society can contribute towards a more sustainable future. Since this was a channel directed straight at students who already had a vested interest in sustainability, we piled in as much information as we could at the time. The thought was to educate further those that already had pre-existing knowledge. This was a very important step since it was one of few modes of communications where time was given to truly present our message in its entirety.Physical events
In order to really connect with people from different backgrounds and students around Chalmers campus, and to change their view on sustainability, several physical events are also being organized. These are done to truly establish our presence and our message in the student campus at Chalmers university of technology. Since Chalmers is home to thousands of students, all being part of our future engineers and scientists, we wanted to spread the insights that we have gained and try to educate as many as we could. Our idea was that when integrating what we have learned about sustainability into academia, we also integrate sustainability firmly into our future.
Safety
These events, though long in planning, have been delayed heavily by the onset of the Covid-19 global pandemic. Even though our will to communicate with our local community is great, the safety of the students and our community must come first.Clothing exchange days
To spread the knowledge of the importance of re-use in today's world we are organizing an event for changing clothes with each other. This will be done to create an avenue where people can meet and socialize in a corona safe environment, while in the same time changing garments that could extend the life length of many clothes that would otherwise be thrown away. It is also a perfect opportunity for us to further discuss what we have learned with our community and to in turn get more input about what we could implement further. We are currently in the marketing and planning phase for this event, so stay tuned for the results once the wiki thaw is implemented!Posters
To spread our best tips about sustainability for normal citizens in their entirety, we are also putting up posters (Figure 5). These will include some of the shortened information about the textile industry, and most importantly concrete hard tips that everyone can follow. Since these were put up all across Chalmers campus the exposure was huge. We also include a QR link to our website were the really interested can go for reading about our project in its entirety as well as get inspiration to join future iterations of the iGEM competition!
Figure 5. The poster we made. This poster was made to aware people the
options what we can do for environment. This were put in across
the entire
Chalmers campus.
Outreach to companies
In order to spread the information that we have gathered regarding the dangers of fast fashion and responsibility of clothing companies towards the consumer and society, a further outreach was conducted. We prepared an e-mail containing a presentation of our project and our working process in Human Practises. Most importantly it also contained our Best Tips towards how to make a clothing store more sustainable, that we have learned throughout this work. This was subsequently sent to fourteen common clothing companies that publicly use quick cycles of production and the fast fashion model. These can be found in a list below.
- HM
- Zara
- Monki
- Primark
- NewYorker
- Gina Tricot
- Cubus
- BikBok
- Stradivarius
- TopShop
- Pull&Bear
- Forever21
- UrbanOutfitters
- Weekday
Outreach to the government
In any democratic country, the ability of the people to make their voices heard is cherished. And after learning and compiling much information that we believe to be paramount towards a more sustainable society, this is exactly what we set out to do. In order to implement this and to try and spread our change towards the higher orders of society, the legislators of the municipality and the state, we decided to create an official motion. This was done by first taking our information that we have learned and creating our Best Tips towards sustainability from a legislative perspective
This was the motion that we wrote, and the processing and reply is still and ongoing process, the answers we got will be implemented first after the wiki thaw. So stay tuned!
The Transcriptome blog
If you want to learn about how we came up with the idea of the blog, check out our Collaboration tab!
The Transcriptome initiative was born together with the UNIL team from Switzerland.
After exploring other possibilities, we decided to host our blog on a private domain (https://thetranscriptome.com) and manage it through Wordpress (https://wordpress.org). We could easily implement a language menu and offer a dark mode for late night readers. Keeping the costs relatively low we could keep our blog publicity free as well.
Having joined forces, we were a group speaking natively 7 different languages (English, French, Swedish, Spanish, Japanese, Polish and Italian). In contrast to most of the existing sources, we decided to reach people who might not be able to fully understand texts or videos in English.
When writing our posts, we followed the generally established rules in the scientific community, from citing the sources to explaining all of the terms used in a text. Some vocabulary often does not need explanation within the scientific community, but it might not be the case outside it. We paid special attention to making a clear distinction between our personal opinions and facts. An original text was usually written in English, so each of us could make comments and corrections, and when it was ready, we translated it from English to other languages. This way we could make sure that the text was clear and easy to understand. However, it’s important to underline that while translating, sense, clarity and meaning were prioritized, so the texts might be slightly different.
Topics The covid19 pandemic resulted in a big wave of biological and medical news. It showed us that some topics are unclear or even controversial, for example wearing masks to prevent the spread of the virus, its origin or even existence in some extreme cases. We thought that helping others to have a better understanding of basic scientific topics, might help them be more critical with this information. Basic knowledge about our immune system, zoonoses or microbes helps us properly understand the news about those topics and make the right choices.
We made a post about the iGEM competition and brought light upon a few examples of outstanding women in science. As a part of the most renowned synthetic biology competition, we introduced our readers to this subject as well. We have written about what is synthetic biology, its origins and the tools used in this field, such as synthetic gene circuits.
We posted one article per week, below is a list of them all:
- Vaccination: How does it work?
- The central dogma of molecular biology
- Origins of life: Are we aliens?
- Our cells are chimera
- What is cancer?
- Are we responsible for the SARS-CoV2 pandemic?
- GMOs: next revolution or hazard to avoid?
- Awesome women in science
- The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (guest post by Violette Defourt from iGEM “Rapidemic” Team Leiden, Netherlands)
- The historical perspective of Synthetic Biology
- Plastic Biodegradation (guest post by Synbio Amazonas, Brazil)
- What is iGEM?
- Synthetic biology: is it magic?
- Synthetic gene circuits
- Fourier Transform: not just an analyser of Frequency (guest post by iGEM NCKU Tainan, Taiwan)
- Innate Immunity and Endometriosis: Bridging the Gap (guest post Emily Schiller, Team UteRus from Rochester, USA)
We are very happy to have collaborated with all the people listed above, and we would like to thank them again for being a part of this project. A special mention goes to Sybio Amazonas, who translated our texts into brazilian and portuguese, making it an eighth language on The Transcriptome blog. Involving other people allowed us to show new ideas, discover new subjects and have a different insight into science.
The Transcriptome blog is now a platform to communicate with the public. We have figured out all the technicalities, and we would love to see it go on even after our adventure with iGEM is over. That is why we want to engage future iGEM teams to take over the blog and share their texts, work and views. With enough people interested it could become an always growing, changing and adapting channel of science communication.
