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

Revision as of 05:14, 17 September 2015

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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 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!.