Hosting Critical Conversations
• The Science Museum of Minnesota and Minnewashta Elementary
We had the excellent opportunity to help shape the innovative initiative facilitated by a National Science Foundation grant. Science museums across the nation were extended the opportunity to develop programming focused on the burgeoning field of synthetic biology. The initiative aimed to stimulate/be a catalyst for community dialogue around a topic at risk for public scorn. Through facilitating new and challenging conversations regarding the simplest (microbial diversity) to potentially most controversial (applied synbio in therapeutics and the environment) aspects of genetic engineering, our team tackled a new mode of connecting the local community to the future implications of synthetic biology and genetic engineering technologies.
This was innovative because we were encouraged to consider multiple dimensions of public engagement with science (PES) as described by McCallie et al. (2009). This study emphasizes collaboration and equal contributions of public and scientific opinions regarding institutional policy, and most importantly rejects the common heuristic that superior scientific knowledge confers superior judgment in which initiatives should be pursued and defended within synthetic biology. Team members helped design three different activity modules encompassing microbial diversity, prioritizing applications of synthetic biology, and comparing vaccine advancements achievable through synthetic biology and conventional science.
Each activity was carefully designed to encourage conversations from different perspectives: children were engaged through exploring the aromas of different microbes (such as yeast and E. coli strains) used in everyday food products to consider our proximity to biotechnology in our daily routines; people of all ages were prompted to decide which applications of synthetic biology should receive funding; and adults identified the most important traits in an effective vaccine based on synbio and conventional development methods.
Instead of approaching this outreach opportunity as a venue convincing the lay population of the safety, utility, etc. of synthetic biology, our team saw it as a resource for valuating future projects as they connect to community objectives. We found that an overwhelming majority of attendees connected with synbio solutions to cancer treatments and other medicines mostly due to personal experience with these diseases. In terms of environmental issues, there was also significant interest in developing more effective mosquito repellents.
Across both of the advanced modules, people did not seemed dismayed by the concept of using synthetic biology as long as it aligned with the initiatives (like cancer treatment) they felt most strongly about. For future Policies and Practices initiatives, Minnesota hopes to adopt this same conversational and collaborative approach to designing our project and communicating the very real benefits of applied synthetic biology to local communities.
McCallie, E., Bell, L., Lohwater, T., Falk, J. H., Lehr, J. L., Lewenstein, B. V., Needham, C., and Wiehe, B. 2009. Many Experts, Many Audiences: Public Engagement with Science and Informal Science Education. A CAISE Inquiry Group Report. Washington, D.C.: Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE).
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