Since the very beginning of our project, we understood how crucial effective communication with the general public would be to the success of our project. We aimed to reach a wide and diverse audience by producing a range of engaging, accessible social media infographics on topics such as synthetic biology and genetic engineering.
We also used this platform to update our audience on the progress of our project and to connect and collaborate with iGEM teams across the globe. Our online questionnaires helped us gauge the attitudes our audience had towards genetic engineering, and the feedback we gained actively reshaped the way we engaged with our audience online and led us to reflect on the direction our project was taking.
Most common of all concerns was the lack of transparency and communication between scientists and non-scientists, which we felt could be overcome by engaging people in scientific discussions as early in life as possible. This was one motivation behind us writing a storybook which introduces the concept of synthetic biology to children in an interactive and imaginative style.
We also created a series of animated videos covering a wide range of scientific subjects for the general public and for secondary schools to use as part of their online teaching. Finally, the goal of our bioethics lecture for university science students was to generate greater awareness about responsible innovation, which we believe to be an essential part of twenty first century science and is in line with the values at the heart of the iGEM competition.
Educational Video Series
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the education system has experienced disruption across the globe, forcing teachers and academics to adapt quickly in order to minimise the consequences for their students. We've seen a mass scramble for educators to transition to online teaching, a tool which most would have been previously completely unfamiliar with. When discussing as a team what direction we'd like to take with our outreach and science communication efforts, the continued restrictions on social distancing limited our options and has required us to adapt in a similar fashion.
This year there was no possibility of running public outreach events or going into schools to interact with students directly. However, we believe that it was more important than ever for us as a team to deliver an impactful outreach campaign, to help students stay inspired to learn after such a challenging year. This was the motivation behind our decision to produce a series of educational videos; to help schools with their delivery of online learning come the re-opening of schools in the UK in September.
As a team passionate about sustainability, we decided this aspect of our project would also be a valuable use of our time as it supports the UN Sustainability Goal 4: Quality Education.
The videos we created are based on aspects of synthetic biology as well as topics specifically relating to our project. We decided to aim the content at students aged 16-18, for two main reasons. Firstly, so that we could rely on a sufficient level of background knowledge to explore complex concepts at a reasonable depth. Secondly, we felt that this is a key age for students to make decisions on their future and discover what they're interested in pursuing. With this in mind, the videos could serve as an exciting resource to spark students curiosity around the possibilities of synthetic biology.
Before we started producing the videos, we got in contact with 6 high schools across the country to find out whether this was something they would be interested in. The responses were very encouraging! Almost every school were keen for the idea and their feedback helped inform our decision to keep the videos short (less than ten minutes) so they would be easy to incorporate alongside the official school curriculum.
After researching and discussing how we would produce our videos, we decided on taking inspiration from the YouTube channel AsapSCIENCE [1], which creates entertaining science education videos using whiteboard illustrations. The whiteboard format seemed to be an engaging way to deliver the content, perfect especially for visual learners due to the focus on colourful imagery. Subtitles have been included to accompany the voiceover to make the experience accessible for students who are deaf or hard of hearing.
The distribution of these video lessons to schools across the country was also a great opportunity to tell more people about our project, which we hope is a good example of how we as a team are applying the tools of synthetic biology to innovatively solve global issues. As of 20th October 2020, our YouTube channel has 5 videos, with a total of 541 views and 29 subscribers.
Here is one of our educational videos; this particular video focuses on biophysics. The video itself covers topics such as biological electrodynamics, fluid dynamics and diffusion.
This video is aimed at students entering into sixth form to give them a brief taster of some of the aspects of biophysics and for them to see how physics can be applied to living systems to predict and model various aspects of biology.
As biophysics is a subject area that is rarely touched upon in the UK syllabus, the exact components of this field often remain unknown until substantially later down a students career path. We hope that by creating this video we can inform and help students consider all aspects of physics when selecting their career path.
We have also uploaded our climate change and coral reef videos for you to enjoy! If you would like see more of our educational videos or any of our other work please visit our YouTube Channel!
Social Media & Online Activity
The most prevalent method of spreading a message this decade is, of course, through social media. It is the quickest way to reach a large diverse audience, although it is easy to have your voice lost in the vast masses of others trying to be heard. This reasoning meant we were keen to focus our energy on producing an exciting social media campaign. At the start of our project we created Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts.
On each of these platforms we've posted a combination of updates related to the progress of our project, as well as infographics to explain topics surrounding synthetic biology and the science behind CalcifEXE. The visual format of explaining these complex concepts has helped to make the information more engaging and less intimidating to get as many people involved as possible. Throughout our social media we have included features such as alternative text on Instagram and dyslexia friendly fonts to ensure maximum accessibility.
Our branding has also evolved drastically since the start of our project; as we refined what our project would be, we adapted our visual style to reflect this by developing an illustration style inspired by crystals.
On Instagram, as of 20/10/2020 we had 195 followers. The majority of our audience were students in the 18-24 age category, a significant fraction of which were life and environmental science undergraduates. The remaining 40% were non-students. Our reach varied from post to post, with an average of around 90 accounts reached per post, and a maximum of 312. Engagement Rates (i.e. the percentage of people who interacted with our posts after viewing them) were on average 10% per post. This is greater than the average engagement rate across all Instagram accounts which sits at 1.22%. [2]
On Facebook, 182 people have followed the page. An average of around 150 accounts were reached per post. Posts that were shared by multiple members of our team were more successful, with our best post hitting a reach of 689. Engagement rates per Facebook post were on average 0.04%, which is smaller than the average across Facebook which sits at 0.09% per post. [3]
On Twitter, only 8 people followed our account, but we had more success in terms of our reach. Our best month for reach was in August, where 12 tweets resulted in 1,918 impressions. Average reach was 1196 impressions per month. The average engagement rate per post across Twitter is 0.048% [4], so our engagement rate was higher than average at 1.6%.
Comparing these 3 different platforms, despite having the lowest reach, Instagram had the greatest engagement rate and so has been the most successful platform for CalcifEXE. As data on our audience demographic isn't available for Facebook or Twitter, we cannot compare how our audience varies on these two platforms in comparison to Instagram.
The process of building an audience is a slow and steady one, but we hope that with our relatively small audience, the content we’ve shared has been of value and encouraged people to learn more about the vast realm of synthetic biology. With valuable comments on our posts such as “very exciting” and “these are amazing ideas” we feel this is an indication that we’re going in the right direction! In the future the aim would be to continue growing the platform by continuing the consistent release of infographics. To reach more people it would be useful to collaborate with similar accounts to improve our exposure, in particular accounts with different demographics. This could help to diversify our audience, which currently has students as the majority. While a majority student demographic isn’t a problem, we feel students possibly have more existing knowledge of the content we produce compared to the rest of the public. This means we could have more of an impact if we improved engagement with non-students.
To see more of our Infographic Posts feel free to visit our Instagram Page
Children's Storybook
The books you read as a young child can teach so much about the world we live in, in a playful and creative way. However, as demonstrated in the article "What's on our bookshelves? The diversity of children's literature in early childhood classroom libraries"[5], children's books follow a predominantly upper middle class, white, cisgender, heterosexual, nondisabled, male narrative. Seeing yourself represented in books help the stories to be more relatable, inspiring, and can help develop your sense of self, especially for young children[6]. The lack of visibility of so many identities in children's books is therefore incredibly problematic. Not only does it suggest to children who have these identities that their experiences aren't recognised or valued, but it also assists in upholding the systems of racism, transphobia, etc., in the whole generation who grow up absorbing these narratives.
This is what inspired us to write 'The Brilliant Biologists'; an 820-word picture book, written in prose. After discovering the devastating effects of climate change in their local park, three curious children are desperate to help. With the guidance of scientist mum, Zora, they dive head first into the realm of synthetic biology. The tools of genetic engineering are used to save the day, although not without a few silly slip-ups first!
No previous science knowledge is needed to enjoy this story, with basic biology being explained creatively along the way. Included at the end of the book will be resources for parents and children to learn more if they’d like to.
To get our children's book out into the world, we had to consider our different options for publishing- use a publishing house or do it ourselves? There were pros and cons to each, but the main issue with self-publishing was that a large online audience would be required to ensure our book wouldn't get lost among the masses of others available online, limiting our potential reach. This led to the decision to use a publisher, who could assist with a marketing campaign and get the picture book into physical book stores. Different publishers specialise in different types of story, so it was important to only submit the manuscript to publishers whose selection of books had a similar style to The Brilliant Biologists. A lot of publishers also do not accept unsolicited manuscript submissions, either because they don't need any new stories or because they only accept submissions via a literary agent. After researching over one hundred different publishing companies, we found four suitable publishers whose work aligned with our story. These are Albert Whitman & Co. [7], Barefoot Books [8], Whacky Bee [9], and Walker [10]. The manuscript and accompanying illustration have been submitted to each of these companies, although they take up to 6 months to process submissions so we are yet to find out if the storybook will be turned into a reality. For now, please feel free to take a look at our manuscript and example page spread below!
Online Questionnaires
Alongside our series of infographic posts on social media, we released a questionnaire on the subject of genetic engineering, which tends to be one of the more contentious issues among the public. This allowed us to initiate an honest and informed discussion with our audience about genetic engineering practices and most importantly, to correct any misconceptions. The responses we received pointed to a lack of clarity and transparency on the subject in the public sphere, with concerns and confusion only being amplified by sensationalist headlines in the media. There was notable interest in the extent to which genetic modification permeates daily life beyond the much discussed genetic modification of crops, in addition to whether the benefits of such methods justified the risks involved and the importance of international regulation.
In response to this feedback, we released a series of follow-up infographics targeting these specific questions. We addressed concerns about the presence of genetically modified bacteria in the environment by specifically mentioning the iGem guidelines we were adhering to, such as pledging to use antibiotic resistance only when absolutely necessary and not releasing any genetically modified bacteria into the environment for the duration of our project.
Given the level of public concern about environmental contamination, we decided it would be important to rigorously test the efficacy of several different methods of removing genetically modified bacteria from the calcium carbonate before even thinking about implementing it in the environment. The COVID-19 pandemic has severely reduced our lab time and hence we have been unable to successfully precipitate calcium carbonate. However, were we to have a fully-formed calcium-carbonate hydrogel structure, we would ensure that our chosen method killed off 100% of the bacteria.
We were also keen to gauge our audience's reaction to our team name and project concept, which we achieved with a second questionnaire. The response to the direction of our project was generally very positive, and helped us to identify which topics required more elaboration. We realised that clarification on the impact of our project on the ecosystem was needed, as well as on the importance of calcium carbonate in a wider context.
Below you can see the questions and responses from our survey:
Bioethics Lecture
We were approached by Dr Ramsdale a University Professor within Biosciences, he asked us if we were willing to make a lecture about our experiences of iGem and how we were able to independently plan and organise our project. We delivered this lecture as a pre-recorded online lecture which was subsequently shown to all second year Bioscience students at the university as part of their Bioethics and Research Skills module.
Within the lecture we discussed why we wanted to participate in iGem and what significant obstacles we had to overcome were. We also talked about the value of good communication and team work especially in the current pandemic. Finally, we discussed what the key factors were to planning and undertaking a scientific project and how our experience of iGem has influenced our thoughts towards study, work and career choices.
We also took this opportunity to expose our project to a large number of people who are in a similar stage of their education as us. This was an invaluable chance to receive potential feedback, criticism and thoughts which we could use to fine tune some aspects of our project.
Below you can see the slides from the lecture that we delivered.
VBNC Cell Video
Dr Sariqa Wagley is a microbiologist at the University of Exeter, whose research is centred around understanding the molecular basis of infections by bacterial pathogens. One strain in particular, V. Parahaemolyticus , has been the primary focus of her research due to the threat its 'viable but non-culturable' (VBNC) cells pose to food security. This bacteria can be found in uncooked or contaminated shellfish, and is behind the dreaded bout of diarrhoea often associated with eating 'bad' shellfish, otherwise known as 'gastroenteritis'. Studies have uncovered a positive relationship between the prevalence of VBNC cells in seafood and warmer temperatures, raising concerns about the effects climate change could have on the growth of this bacteria. This topic fit in nicely with our other climate change-themed videos and was a great opportunity for us to get to grips with important research revealing one of climate change's lesser known impacts on the UK. We felt it was important to summarise Dr Wagley's findings in an engaging, animated video to inform those in the general public, as well as those who work in the aquaculture and shellfish industries, about this little known public health hazard. Our desire to raise awareness of the issue was strengthened by the fact that the detection of this bacteria by food testing facilities is currently not enforced by law and therefore presents an even greater risk to consumers.
Coral Symposium
The ‘CalcifEXE’ team presented our project to other iGem teams and experts as well as over 40 members of the global scientific community as part of the iGem Coral Symposium (organised by the University of New South Wales iGem team) on the 24th September at 10am BST/7PM AEST.
As part of this we delivered a 15 minute presentation outlining all of the components followed by a question and answer session where we answered a large number of questions from those in attendance including questions surrounding the process by which we came up with our idea as well as the impact we think COVID-19 has had on our project. The feedback we received was that attendees were “encouraged” and “amazed” by our project and the innovation behind it. It was amazing to help attendees understand synthetic biology principles and synthetic biology approaches to tackling problems facing coral reefs, and it was incredibly rewarding to receive such positive feedback at the end of the event.
How COVID-19 Shaped Our Project
This short video documents how the pandemic has influenced the direction that our project has taken with regards to the science communication and education aspects of our project, leading us to focus heavily on education and outreach in a post-COVID world
The pandemic has meant that remote work (particularly during the first half of our project) has been at the forefront of our progression as a team. While this has provided significant obstacles we believe that through technology and determination we have overcome these issues as best as possible. Although our lab time has been limited, thanks to the fantastic work by our supervisors we have been able to have a substantial amount of lab time this summer, something that we are all grateful for.
References
[1] ASAP Science, YouTube, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.youtube.com/user/AsapSCIENCE
[2] Digital Marketing Community, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.digitalmarketingcommunity.com/indicators/instagram-engagement-rate/
[3] Digital Marketing Community, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.digitalmarketingcommunity.com/indicators/facebook-engagement-rate/
[4] Digital Marketing Community, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.digitalmarketingcommunity.com/indicators/twitter-average-engagement-rate-across-industries-2019/
[5] 1. Crisp T, Knezek SM, Quinn M, Bingham GE, Girardeau K, Starks F. What's on our bookshelves? the diversity of children's literature in early childhood classroom libraries. Journal of Children's Literature. 2016;42(2):29-42. https://uoelibrary.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1837539742?accountid=10792.
[6] Thomas EE. Stories still matter: Rethinking the role of diverse children's literature today. Language Arts. 2016;94(2):112-119. https://uoelibrary.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1835329714?accountid=10792
[7] Albert Whitman, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.albertwhitman.com/
[8] Bare Foot Books, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.barefootbooks.com/
[9] Wacky Bee Books, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.wackybeebooks.com/
[10] Walker, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.walker.co.uk/
Social Media & Online Activity
The most prevalent method of spreading a message this decade is, of course, through social media. It is the quickest way to reach a large diverse audience, although it is easy to have your voice lost in the vast masses of others trying to be heard. This reasoning meant we were keen to focus our energy on producing an exciting social media campaign. At the start of our project we created Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts.
On each of these platforms we've posted a combination of updates related to the progress of our project, as well as infographics to explain topics surrounding synthetic biology and the science behind CalcifEXE. The visual format of explaining these complex concepts has helped to make the information more engaging and less intimidating to get as many people involved as possible. Throughout our social media we have included features such as alternative text on Instagram and dyslexia friendly fonts to ensure maximum accessibility.
Our branding has also evolved drastically since the start of our project; as we refined what our project would be, we adapted our visual style to reflect this by developing an illustration style inspired by crystals.
On Instagram, as of 20/10/2020 we had 195 followers. The majority of our audience were students in the 18-24 age category, a significant fraction of which were life and environmental science undergraduates. The remaining 40% were non-students. Our reach varied from post to post, with an average of around 90 accounts reached per post, and a maximum of 312. Engagement Rates (i.e. the percentage of people who interacted with our posts after viewing them) were on average 10% per post. This is greater than the average engagement rate across all Instagram accounts which sits at 1.22%. [2]
On Facebook, 182 people have followed the page. An average of around 150 accounts were reached per post. Posts that were shared by multiple members of our team were more successful, with our best post hitting a reach of 689. Engagement rates per Facebook post were on average 0.04%, which is smaller than the average across Facebook which sits at 0.09% per post. [3]
On Twitter, only 8 people followed our account, but we had more success in terms of our reach. Our best month for reach was in August, where 12 tweets resulted in 1,918 impressions. Average reach was 1196 impressions per month. The average engagement rate per post across Twitter is 0.048% [4], so our engagement rate was higher than average at 1.6%.
Comparing these 3 different platforms, despite having the lowest reach, Instagram had the greatest engagement rate and so has been the most successful platform for CalcifEXE. As data on our audience demographic isn't available for Facebook or Twitter, we cannot compare how our audience varies on these two platforms in comparison to Instagram.
The process of building an audience is a slow and steady one, but we hope that with our relatively small audience, the content we’ve shared has been of value and encouraged people to learn more about the vast realm of synthetic biology. With valuable comments on our posts such as “very exciting” and “these are amazing ideas” we feel this is an indication that we’re going in the right direction! In the future the aim would be to continue growing the platform by continuing the consistent release of infographics. To reach more people it would be useful to collaborate with similar accounts to improve our exposure, in particular accounts with different demographics. This could help to diversify our audience, which currently has students as the majority. While a majority student demographic isn’t a problem, we feel students possibly have more existing knowledge of the content we produce compared to the rest of the public. This means we could have more of an impact if we improved engagement with non-students.
To see more of our Infographic Posts feel free to visit our Instagram Page
Children's Storybook
The books you read as a young child can teach so much about the world we live in, in a playful and creative way. However, as demonstrated in the article "What's on our bookshelves? The diversity of children's literature in early childhood classroom libraries"[5], children's books follow a predominantly upper middle class, white, cisgender, heterosexual, nondisabled, male narrative. Seeing yourself represented in books help the stories to be more relatable, inspiring, and can help develop your sense of self, especially for young children[6]. The lack of visibility of so many identities in children's books is therefore incredibly problematic. Not only does it suggest to children who have these identities that their experiences aren't recognised or valued, but it also assists in upholding the systems of racism, transphobia, etc., in the whole generation who grow up absorbing these narratives.
This is what inspired us to write 'The Brilliant Biologists'; an 820-word picture book, written in prose. After discovering the devastating effects of climate change in their local park, three curious children are desperate to help. With the guidance of scientist mum, Zora, they dive head first into the realm of synthetic biology. The tools of genetic engineering are used to save the day, although not without a few silly slip-ups first!
No previous science knowledge is needed to enjoy this story, with basic biology being explained creatively along the way. Included at the end of the book will be resources for parents and children to learn more if they’d like to.
To get our children's book out into the world, we had to consider our different options for publishing- use a publishing house or do it ourselves? There were pros and cons to each, but the main issue with self-publishing was that a large online audience would be required to ensure our book wouldn't get lost among the masses of others available online, limiting our potential reach. This led to the decision to use a publisher, who could assist with a marketing campaign and get the picture book into physical book stores. Different publishers specialise in different types of story, so it was important to only submit the manuscript to publishers whose selection of books had a similar style to The Brilliant Biologists. A lot of publishers also do not accept unsolicited manuscript submissions, either because they don't need any new stories or because they only accept submissions via a literary agent. After researching over one hundred different publishing companies, we found four suitable publishers whose work aligned with our story. These are Albert Whitman & Co. [7], Barefoot Books [8], Whacky Bee [9], and Walker [10]. The manuscript and accompanying illustration have been submitted to each of these companies, although they take up to 6 months to process submissions so we are yet to find out if the storybook will be turned into a reality. For now, please feel free to take a look at our manuscript and example page spread below!
Online Questionnaires
Alongside our series of infographic posts on social media, we released a questionnaire on the subject of genetic engineering, which tends to be one of the more contentious issues among the public. This allowed us to initiate an honest and informed discussion with our audience about genetic engineering practices and most importantly, to correct any misconceptions. The responses we received pointed to a lack of clarity and transparency on the subject in the public sphere, with concerns and confusion only being amplified by sensationalist headlines in the media. There was notable interest in the extent to which genetic modification permeates daily life beyond the much discussed genetic modification of crops, in addition to whether the benefits of such methods justified the risks involved and the importance of international regulation.
In response to this feedback, we released a series of follow-up infographics targeting these specific questions. We addressed concerns about the presence of genetically modified bacteria in the environment by specifically mentioning the iGem guidelines we were adhering to, such as pledging to use antibiotic resistance only when absolutely necessary and not releasing any genetically modified bacteria into the environment for the duration of our project.
Given the level of public concern about environmental contamination, we decided it would be important to rigorously test the efficacy of several different methods of removing genetically modified bacteria from the calcium carbonate before even thinking about implementing it in the environment. The COVID-19 pandemic has severely reduced our lab time and hence we have been unable to successfully precipitate calcium carbonate. However, were we to have a fully-formed calcium-carbonate hydrogel structure, we would ensure that our chosen method killed off 100% of the bacteria.
We were also keen to gauge our audience's reaction to our team name and project concept, which we achieved with a second questionnaire. The response to the direction of our project was generally very positive, and helped us to identify which topics required more elaboration. We realised that clarification on the impact of our project on the ecosystem was needed, as well as on the importance of calcium carbonate in a wider context.
Below you can see the questions and responses from our survey:
Bioethics Lecture
We were approached by Dr Ramsdale a University Professor within Biosciences, he asked us if we were willing to make a lecture about our experiences of iGem and how we were able to independently plan and organise our project. We delivered this lecture as a pre-recorded online lecture which was subsequently shown to all second year Bioscience students at the university as part of their Bioethics and Research Skills module.
Within the lecture we discussed why we wanted to participate in iGem and what significant obstacles we had to overcome were. We also talked about the value of good communication and team work especially in the current pandemic. Finally, we discussed what the key factors were to planning and undertaking a scientific project and how our experience of iGem has influenced our thoughts towards study, work and career choices.
We also took this opportunity to expose our project to a large number of people who are in a similar stage of their education as us. This was an invaluable chance to receive potential feedback, criticism and thoughts which we could use to fine tune some aspects of our project.
Below you can see the slides from the lecture that we delivered.
VBNC Cell Video
Dr Sariqa Wagley is a microbiologist at the University of Exeter, whose research is centred around understanding the molecular basis of infections by bacterial pathogens. One strain in particular, V. Parahaemolyticus , has been the primary focus of her research due to the threat its 'viable but non-culturable' (VBNC) cells pose to food security. This bacteria can be found in uncooked or contaminated shellfish, and is behind the dreaded bout of diarrhoea often associated with eating 'bad' shellfish, otherwise known as 'gastroenteritis'. Studies have uncovered a positive relationship between the prevalence of VBNC cells in seafood and warmer temperatures, raising concerns about the effects climate change could have on the growth of this bacteria. This topic fit in nicely with our other climate change-themed videos and was a great opportunity for us to get to grips with important research revealing one of climate change's lesser known impacts on the UK. We felt it was important to summarise Dr Wagley's findings in an engaging, animated video to inform those in the general public, as well as those who work in the aquaculture and shellfish industries, about this little known public health hazard. Our desire to raise awareness of the issue was strengthened by the fact that the detection of this bacteria by food testing facilities is currently not enforced by law and therefore presents an even greater risk to consumers.
Coral Symposium
The ‘CalcifEXE’ team presented our project to other iGem teams and experts as well as over 40 members of the global scientific community as part of the iGem Coral Symposium (organised by the University of New South Wales iGem team) on the 24th September at 10am BST/7PM AEST.
As part of this we delivered a 15 minute presentation outlining all of the components followed by a question and answer session where we answered a large number of questions from those in attendance including questions surrounding the process by which we came up with our idea as well as the impact we think COVID-19 has had on our project. The feedback we received was that attendees were “encouraged” and “amazed” by our project and the innovation behind it. It was amazing to help attendees understand synthetic biology principles and synthetic biology approaches to tackling problems facing coral reefs, and it was incredibly rewarding to receive such positive feedback at the end of the event.
How COVID-19 Shaped Our Project
This short video documents how the pandemic has influenced the direction that our project has taken with regards to the science communication and education aspects of our project, leading us to focus heavily on education and outreach in a post-COVID world
The pandemic has meant that remote work (particularly during the first half of our project) has been at the forefront of our progression as a team. While this has provided significant obstacles we believe that through technology and determination we have overcome these issues as best as possible. Although our lab time has been limited, thanks to the fantastic work by our supervisors we have been able to have a substantial amount of lab time this summer, something that we are all grateful for.
References
[1] ASAP Science, YouTube, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.youtube.com/user/AsapSCIENCE
[2] Digital Marketing Community, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.digitalmarketingcommunity.com/indicators/instagram-engagement-rate/
[3] Digital Marketing Community, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.digitalmarketingcommunity.com/indicators/facebook-engagement-rate/
[4] Digital Marketing Community, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.digitalmarketingcommunity.com/indicators/twitter-average-engagement-rate-across-industries-2019/
[5] 1. Crisp T, Knezek SM, Quinn M, Bingham GE, Girardeau K, Starks F. What's on our bookshelves? the diversity of children's literature in early childhood classroom libraries. Journal of Children's Literature. 2016;42(2):29-42. https://uoelibrary.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1837539742?accountid=10792.
[6] Thomas EE. Stories still matter: Rethinking the role of diverse children's literature today. Language Arts. 2016;94(2):112-119. https://uoelibrary.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1835329714?accountid=10792
[7] Albert Whitman, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.albertwhitman.com/
[8] Bare Foot Books, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.barefootbooks.com/
[9] Wacky Bee Books, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.wackybeebooks.com/
[10] Walker, Accessed: 20.10.20, Available from: https://www.walker.co.uk/