Team:UCL/Education
Overview
PETZAP’s journey through online science communication (scicom)
We targeted high school students in the aim of improving their accessibility to STEM and synthetic biology (synbio) during this pandemic. We hosted a series of webinars titled ‘Zoom’ing on Biology and another at the University of London (UoL) Taster Day. In an aim to contribute to the Black Lives Matter movement, we collaborated with In2Science UK and brought synbio to underrepresented people. We focused on written material, as well as oral presentations, as part of a science engineering magazine. We reached out to various organisations and met with two, Algalita and Plastic Oceans Europe
Part 1 - Ensuring an access to STEM during a pandemic – not letting national lockdowns get in the way of education
The global pandemic has forced 1.7 billion children and young adults to stay at home when they should be going to school, as of June 2020, and are therefore at a disadvantage academically [1]. The UCL iGEM team sought to help these students, as we believe that they have a right to learn about synthetic biology. With this aim, we hosted a series of webinars to share our biology-based knowledge.
1.1 Zoom’ing on Biology series (21st June, 29th June, 7th July)
Summary
Why we did it
Due to pandemic restrictions, a large number of high school students, who would love to pursue a study in the biological field, lacked sufficient information on the key differences between bio-related courses. Many university visits and schools were indeed closed due to the worldwide pandemic. Therefore, our team, made up of members from eight different STEM majors, was keen to share our journeys and answer questions that high schoolers might have, to facilitate their decision making.
What we did
We communicated frequently with high school educators from Europe, North America, and Asia, to put together a series of webinars that would best suit our audience. Each webinar touched upon a different biology-related degree:
- Natural Sciences, Molecular biology, and Immunology
- Biochemistry
- Biochemical Engineering
For each degree, the presentation was structured in this manner:
- Brief description of what the degree entails
- What we found particularly interesting within our degree
- The type of careers the degree leads to
- Our specific research interests and future career plans
Accesibility
- Webinar casts on our team’s YouTube channel included subtitles and descriptions in English, Spanish, and Chinese for our team to reach a wider audience.
- We posted our recorded sessions to Bilibili and feedback surveys to WenJuanXing, along with Google and Youtube, so people around the world could access them.
- Our webinar time was determined considering intercontinental time difference of our audience so students from various countries would feel encouraged to join.
Safety
Our team did not directly contact high school students. Before and after each session, our surveys were distributed to high school teachers who passed the surveys on to their students for their feedback on topics to cover. During each webinar, questions from students were anonymised, and students did not have permission to turn on their camera or microphone. Sessions were recorded and posted on YouTube with consent from students and their parents.
1.2 UoL Taster day (16th July 2020)
Summary
What we did
In collaboration with the department of Biochemical Engineering at UCL, we set up a 2-hour webinar on Zoom, as part of the UoL taster day programme. We structured our PowerPoint presentation into three sections: an introduction to what is synthetic biology, followed by an overview of synbio’s potential with some specific example applications, and finally an introduction to how to do synbio including the tools we use and process we follow as synthetic biologists. We then took this opportunity to introduce our project as a 2020 example of synthetic biology.
Throughout the presentation, we had several Q&A sessions and interactive polls (using the platform Ahaslides) to promote a two-way discussion. These were very effective in getting our audience’s opinion and ideas, which often prompted interesting conversations. See results of polls in box below section 2.1.
Accessibility & safety
To make this webinar accessible to a wider audience, we recorded it with the audience’s consent. We then up loaded it on our YouTube channel. Therefore, the material we created is now available to everyone, 24/7.
1.3 UCL Academy guest lecture (15th October 2020)
Summary
What we did
Our supervisor Rana Khalife invited us to co-present with her a guest lecture at the UCL Academy secondary
school. The first part of the lecture was primarily Rana’s presentation of Biochemical Engineering and the
course at UCL. We then gave a short 15 min talk summarising contents of our Taster day lecture (see section
1.2): introduction to iGEM and synbio, how to do synbio, applications of synbio and finally introduction to
our team’s project with polls for the students to interact.
Despite the presentation’s short length, we had a record number of participants and the enthusiasm was great to see!
Safety and Accessibility
To make this webinar accessible to a wider audience, we recorded it with the audience’s consent. We then uploaded it on our YouTube channel. Therefore, the material we created is now available to everyone, 24/7.
Watch the video here.
Part 2 - Targeting the BAME community
Current events have highlighted existing inequalities in society. In UK higher education, there is a 13% attainment gap between Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students relative to their white counterparts [2]. Therefore, we were inspired to create educational materials targeted to students of underrepresented backgrounds with a focus on BAME communities. Our targets were to make science and synthetic biology accessible to these students especially during lockdown, and to promote the representation of these communities through our educational materials.
2.1 Cultivating a passion for STEM through an open dialogue – In2ScienceUK (11th & 25th August 2020)
Summary
What we did
We collaborated with In2ScienceUK to engage with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds with the aim
to encourage their pursuit of careers in STEM. We worked with them to organise and deliver two interactive
webinars for a Virtual Placement programme, developed by In2Science UK.
In the first webinar, we covered key differences between various biology-related degrees (Biochemistry,
Molecular Biology, Neuroscience and Biochemical Engineering), along with sharing our personal experiences
gained through studying these programmes at UCL. We included resources and guidance to support the attendees
in their university applications. The second webinar was an introduction to synthetic biology identical to the
taster day.
The educational materials were created to be simple and intuitive through the consistent use of visual content such as graphics and videos. We also used polls to prompt discussions on synthetic biology and biosafety.
Accesibility
Following our first webinars on zooming in on biology and the taster day, we aspired to make the materials available to students of disadvantaged backgrounds considering they had been significantly affected by the lockdown. Therefore, we were motivated to take part in the In2ScienceUK programme to give these students an equal opportunity and access to educational materials during this time.
Outcomes
There were 36 and 17 attendees in the first and second webinar respectively. The students were very engaged in the polls and interactive activities (see results below) and actively participated by asking questions. As a result, we were able to successfully create an open two-way dialogue about the concerns and potential of synthetic biology.
The overall results from our interactive polls during our three synbio webinars (Taster day, In2Science, UCL Academy)
Figure 1. Impact of our webinars on the audience’s understanding of synthetic biology. a. Word cloud done at the beginning of the presentations, testing the attendees’ initial knowledge of synbio – demonstration of an already detailed understanding. b. Word cloud done at the end of the presentations – clear take-home message that synbio has an important role in global development.
Word clouds built with WordClouds.com and data from the Taster Day and In2Science webinars. The bigger the word, the more students typed it in on the live Ahaslide poll.
Figure 2. Our audience’s openness to GMOs, specifically synthetic food, after synbio was explained. Data from the Taster Day and In2Science webinars.
Figure 3. Our audience’s view on the global issues our project aims to solve before project was explained. Data from the Taster Day and In2Science webinars. Pie charts made in PowerPoint. Audience overwhelmingly concerned about plastic pollution and a little less, yet still majority concerned about water scarcity.
Figure 4. Our audience’s view on the effectiveness of our project after project was explained. Data from all three webinars; pie charts made in PowerPoint. Young generation overall open to the implementation of this project and positive about its usefulness.
2.2 Creative Communication of Synthetic Biology – Generation Eng Magazine
Summary
What we did
Many outreach activities during the pandemic mirrored the online webinar format which we employed. After recognising this, we wanted to create something different that would be fun and educational for high school students. We identified an opportunity to develop a comic-style article which could be published in the Generation Eng magazine. This magazine was developed at Loughborough University with support from the Royal Academy of Engineering to create a new science magazine targeted at young high school and engineering students.
We created a fictional superhero story about our project which communicated concepts in Synthetic Biology such as strain selection, biosafety and genetic engineering. A set of fact boxes were also included to provide further detail on these concepts, which helped to engage a wider range of readers.
Accessibility
During the development of our story, we identified our unconscious bias to portray the main character as a white male. We challenged this by instead including creating a main character from an underrepresented background. This supported our aim to encourage young readers from the BAME community to feel better included in science.
Part 3 - Targeting a non-technical audience
3.1 JOGL article
Summary
What we did
We also wrote an article for Just One Giant Lab (JOGL) about our project which was published on Medium, an online publishing platform. Considering the target audience, the article was written in layman’s terms to engage a diverse range of readers who may not have a synthetic biology background. The intended use of the material was to inform popular science readers about our project and the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs). Read the article here.
Outcomes
We were able to communicate our project and its potential impact on a platform to reach a wider audience. In addition, we were able to reflect on the SDGs and how we could support achieving them within the iGEM community.
3.2 Algalita + Plastic Oceans (September)
We collaborated with Algalita (a US non-profit organisation based in southern California) and Plastic Oceans Eu (a European non-profit organisation), both of which aim to communicate the global issue of marine plastic pollution to the general public.
Summary
What we did
During a set of meetings with each organisation, we offered to provide material on the potential of synthetic biology to help reduce marine plastic pollution. This would add to their existing educational material and educate a wide audience on synbio. We additionally offered to promote the organisations’ work to the large iGEM community, to spread the word about marine plastic pollution.
What each organisation suggested
- Algalita: our team could create a waymark for Algalita’s wayfinder society (a society created to bring together young people). A waymark consists of a challenge/steppingstone that members of the wayfinder society can attempt to complete. An example of this could be a checklist and instructions on how to build a miniature Microbial Plastic degradation and Desalination Cell. As this idea has not become reality yet, we hope a more defined waymark can be put together next year.
- Plastics Oceans Eu: this organisation was more interested in a long-term partnership during which we could participate in one of their hands-on events (on-site data collection in the UK for example). We hope to contact them early next year to build a strong partnership throughout the summer.
Outcomes
With both organisations being very busy at this time of year, these potential projects did not take off. However, we have developed a strong network which we are confident will be fruitful for next year’s science communication. Furthermore, since both organisations knew little about synbio to start with, we took this opportunity to briefly introduce them to the field, and hopefully spread the synbio love to the rest of the organisation.
Part 4 - Targeting the iGEM scientific community
4.1 The MSP-Maastricht iGEM collaboration: iGEM 2020 proceedings journal
Summary
What we did
In late July, we were contacted by MSP-Maastricht’s inviting us to participate in their ‘iGEM 2020 Proceedings Journal’. We replied to inform them that we were keen to participate. Towards the end of August, we submitted our paper titled: “Integrating enzymatic PET degradation into Microbial Desalination Cell technology” for peer review. The final paper was then published by MSP-Maastricht in mid-October.
Outcome
This was a great opportunity for us to educate a very different kind of audience to what we used to. We dived deeper into the details of synbio and the background of our project to put together this article, accessible to all iGEM teams and the wider scientific community. With this final event, we have succeeded in communicating science to a very wide audience, from high schoolers to older adults, from non-scientists to scientific experts.
- OECD (June 2020), Education and COVID-19: Focusing on the long-term impact of school closures, OECD policy responses to coronavirus, (accessed on 6th October 2020)
- Universities UK (May 2019), Black, Asian and Minority ethnic student attainment at UK universities: #closingthegap, (accessed on 7th October 2020)