Difference between revisions of "Team:BostonU/Education/Building with Biology"

Revision as of 02:48, 18 September 2015

Building with Biology

We also recognized that while our research was foundational and not immediately ready for any particular applications, it was still important to consider downstream uses and to engage in constructive dialogue with the public. Following our collaborations with the Wellesley museum exhibit project, we are able to experience a fully functioning syn bio museum exhibit! One of our biggest impacts in the community this summer was at the museum education opportunity called "Building with Biology", hosted by the Museum of Science here in Boston. This was a pilot event held at 8 museums across the country to disseminate information and engage museum goers in syn bio.

We worked closely with museum coordinators, local research scientists, and even the Wellesley and MIT iGEM teams to lead activities that would spark public discussion. These discussions revolved around either big ideas in synthetic biology or what a researcher does on a regular basis like creating different types of vaccines using recombination techniques, creating a super bacteria by combining genes, or showing routine techniques such as plating cells. However, even before that, it was our job to introduce synthetic biology and address the misconceptions, questions, and comments museum-goers had. We were stunned and impressed with the knowledge and curiosity that the children expressed. So many could understand syn bio when it was compared to something else in the activities, such as cutting and pasting for putting genes from one bacteria into another. Many events asked museum-goers to think about the ethics of syn bio and not only did the children come up with some interesting arguments, but the parents were interested as well. Over the discussion some of those initial ideas would change, which is really all we can hope for when talking about such controversial topics. One of the most unique opportunities we had was to sit in a roundtable discussion with members of the public and debate cutting edge technologies, such as engineering the genomes of mosquitos and opening a community lab (which some teams could possibly benefit from to do mammalian research!)

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 <h3>Building with Biology</h3>
-<p>We also recognized that while our research was foundational and not immediately ready for any particular applications, it was still important to consider downstream applications and to engage in constructive dialogue with the public about how synbio research could and is impacting them. Following our collaborations with Wellesley we are able to experience a fully functioning syn bio museum exhibit! One of our biggest impacts this summer was to partake in a museum education opportunity called "Building with Biology", hosted by the Museum of Science here in Boston. This was a pilot event held at 8 museums across the country to engage the public in constructive dialogue. We worked closely with museum coordinators, local research scientists, and even the Wellesley and MIT iGEM teams to lead activities that would spark public discussion. However, even before that it was our job to introduce synthetic biology and address misconceptions and questions museumgoers had. We are really impressed with the knowledge and curiosity that the children expressed. So many could understand syn bio when it was compared to something else in the activities. Many events asked them simplistic questions about the ethics of syn bio and not only did the children come up with some interesting arguments, but the parents also had some ideas. And over the discussion some of those initial ideas would change, which is really what we can hope for when talking about such controversial topics. One of the most unique opportunities was to sit in a roundtable discussion with members of the public and talk about cutting edge technologies, such as engineering the genomes of mosquitos and opening a community lab (which some teams could possibly benefit for to do mammalian research!.</p>
+<p>We also recognized that while our research was foundational and not immediately ready for any particular applications, it was still important to consider downstream uses and to engage in constructive dialogue with the public. Following our collaborations with the Wellesley museum exhibit project, we are able to experience a fully functioning syn bio museum exhibit! One of our biggest impacts in the community this summer was at the museum education opportunity called "Building with Biology", hosted by the Museum of Science here in Boston. This was a pilot event held at 8 museums across the country to disseminate information and engage museum goers in syn bio.</p>
+<p>We worked closely with museum coordinators, local research scientists, and even the Wellesley and MIT iGEM teams to lead activities that would spark public discussion. These discussions revolved around either big ideas in synthetic biology or what a researcher does on a regular basis like creating different types of vaccines using recombination techniques, creating a super bacteria by combining genes, or showing routine techniques such as plating cells. However, even before that, it was our job to introduce synthetic biology and address the misconceptions, questions, and comments museum-goers had. We were stunned and impressed with the knowledge and curiosity that the children expressed. So many could understand syn bio when it was compared to something else in the activities, such as cutting and pasting for putting genes from one bacteria into another. Many events asked museum-goers to think about the ethics of syn bio and not only did the children come up with some interesting arguments, but the parents were interested as well. Over the discussion some of those initial ideas would change, which is really all we can hope for when talking about such controversial topics. One of the most unique opportunities we had was to sit in a roundtable discussion with members of the public and debate cutting edge technologies, such as engineering the genomes of mosquitos and opening a community lab (which some teams could possibly benefit from to do mammalian research!)</p>
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