Science communication and education both go hand-in-hand. Our team took a multifaceted approach towards scientific communication. We tried our best to reach out as wide a demographic as possible and address pertinent questions in synthetic biology. Our goal being to make science accessible to everyone while still maintaining the highest integrity of research. Our various initiatives on science communication are listed below.
Webinars
Due the COVID, we unfortunately could not directly interact with our audiences, therefore, chose the medium of a web-based seminar, or a "webinar" to communicate and teach science to a larger audience. We had the opportunity to conduct three webinars for over 600 high school students in the 11th and 12th grades belonging to STEM backgrounds of Deeksha Center for Learning, Bangalore. The webinar's objective was to introduce students to the basic concepts of synthetic biology while also showcasing applications of synthetic biology in the backdrop of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We were able to have an open dialogue with these students about Genetically Modified Organisms. This also gave us a platform to discuss our project with these students, who gave us invaluable insights and feedback, which we have implemented in our human-centric design.
We also circulated a survey among these students to gauge their opinions about synthtic biology and science as a whole. The student demographic consisted of 35% (217) females and 56% (403) males. All students had a background in Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Mathematics and were preparing for preparatory exams to undergraduate universities. From the survey, we conducted there were a few key insights that we gained. Our primary objective was to expose students to research methodology and application-oriented research practices. Initially, 52.8% of the students mentioned that they were interested in a career in research. Following our webinar, when asked the same question, 74% of the students were open to the idea of a career in research, with 77.4% expressing interest in having synthetic biology as part of their curriculum.
The second half of our webinar focused exclusively on GMOs and students' perception of GMOs. 74.3% of the participants believed that Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) are a boon to curb the hunger epidemic worldwide. When the remaining 25.7% were asked if knowing that 115 Nobel Laureates worldwide support GMOs would change their perception of GMOs, 74.3% reported feeling more secure about GMOs and their applications.
You can find a recording of our webinar here
Abhigyaan Collaboration
Misinformation and myths have become highly prevelant in our society, especially so since the beginning of the pandemic carried by the panic associated with it. We collaborated with Abhigyaan — a student-run organization at BITS Pilani K.K Birla Goa campus which aims at providing quality education to the underprivileged and work towards their social upliftment. We along with Abhigyaan, brought forth a few of these myths and debunked them to spread safer and smarter ways to deal with the pandemic. All of our posts can be found on our instagram page. A few of them have been shown below:
Social Media and Media Mentions
Social media has become one of the most important lifelines of efficient communication. We have maintained an extremely active social media presence on Twitter and Instagram. Our photoblog initiative Humans of iGEM aimed at spreading awareness and keeping the community engaged.
BioSummit
In collaboration with The Dais India, EMERGE, BITSMUN Goa, and iGEM Manipal Biomachines, we organized the first-ever national-level iGEM India BioSummit 2020 on 25th July 2020. The BioSummit focused on an interdisciplinary interaction for synthetic biology along with its relevance and impact value in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Our keynote speakers were Georgios Kostakos, Executive Director, FOGGS; Sudha Reddy, Founder, Eco Foundation for Sustainable Alternatives; and Varsha Jaisimha iGEM Asia Ambassador 2020, India. More information can be found on our AIIM page here.
Podcasts and Interviews
We collaborated with the iGEM Pittsburg team for their podcast to talk about iGEM and synthetic biology. The goal of their podcast is to shine the light on current iGEM teams and their progress so far. Each podcast episode is conversational and accessible to a general audience. We also appeared on a live podcast (‘Charlas In Silico’) by the iGEM Barcelona team and to talk about our experience as iGEMers.
CTE Synbio course
Along with the Centre for Technical Education of our university, we were able to start an exclusive course on synthetic biology for the undergraduate students. Our course attempts to provide an introduction to bioengineering and describe the various engineering principles used therein. Rather than approaching the subject from a purely biological perspective, this course introduces a multidisciplinary approach that covers physics, mathematics, computer science and even economics. Most importantly, however, the objective of this course is to show that the domain of engineering is ubiquitous and wide-ranging, and not just limited to conventional areas; besides, it also covers how the sciences have been able to benefit from the applications of engineering in their areas.
Accessibility Initiative
The Language Project was created by IIT Madras, to address the difficulties in science communication and to make science more accessible. This year BITS Goa and the University of Rochester collaborated with IIT Madras to expand the number of initiatives under this umbrella. It is a multifaceted approach that includes art, dance and music to foster science communication. Further, we seek to increase accessibility of resources through our ASL initiatives and by making iGEM wikis more accessible. More information can be found on our Accessibility page