Team:Manchester-Graz/Practices/Outreach
Outreach
School Visits
As a part of our public outreach we visited two Highschools in Austria, BRG Kepler in Graz and HLW Deutschlandsberg, to talk about Biotechnology, Synthetic Biology and our iGEM project.
To make sure the students (most of them 17 or 18 years old) knew what we were going to talk about we started our presentation with a short explanation of DNA, genes, transcription and translation followed by the principles of plasmids, cloning and their use for BioTech and SynBio. That theory was also illustrated by several examples of how those two research fields are a substantial part of our everyday life, even if we might not always be aware of it. Thereafter we took time to answer questions arising from our audience regarding that topics as well as biotechnology programs at university.
After all that talking the students got a chance to get their hands right onto the topic and isolated DNA from strawberries. The surprise was huge by the amount of slimy mass consisting of DNA and proteins they could isolate from a small amount of strawberry and even take their results home in micro centrifuge tubes.
For us it was quiet an experience to talk about Synthetic Biology in front of pupils since we were only used to discussing our results and scientific topics in front of fellow students or teachers. Especially explaining complex biological processes (such as transcription and translation) and methods (for example PCR) made it quit challenging for us, as we had to simplify our language to make sure pupils really understood what we were talking about.y/
Open Day
In June we had the chance to spread the love for synthetic biology and spark an interest in Parkinson’s disease at a two day event hosted by the Faculty of Life Sciences. At our stand we offered activities such as optical illusions to show how the brain works. We explained the disease process of Parkinson’s as well as the current treatment and how our project might benefit patients.
800 people visited the open day over the two days including school children, families as well as academics.
Sociological Survey
As public outreach was one of our main concerns during the summer we created a survey which we handed out people from Austria and UK after a presentation. We are a multinational team and so the comparison of the two countries Austria and United Kingdom was important for us. We worked out 8 questions concerning public’s opinion about synthetic biology and genetic engineering
All in all 91 people took part in our survey- 55 Austrians and 36 people from the United Kingdom. We were able to reach persons of different age, ethnicity and education.
Figure 1The blue bar refers to Austria and the orange one to the United Kingdom. SA stands for Strongly Agree, A for Agree, NS for Not Sure, D for Disagree, SD for Strongly Disagree and NA for not applicable.
Most Austrians (63%) agree that they feel to know what synthetic biology is. In comparison to that more people from UK do not feel sure if they do (Fig.1). British even disagreed/strongly disagreed at this question. Overall it can be said that Austrians feel more informed about synthetic biology than the British.
Figure 2 The blue bar refers to Austria and the orange one to the United Kingdom. SA stands for Strongly Agree, A for Agree, NS for Not Sure, D for Disagree, SD for Strongly Disagree and NA for not applicable.
The UK bars strongly agree, agree and no sure hold the balance (Fig.2). Most of the British think that Synthetic Biology is a good thing. Also most Austrians feel positive about Synthetic Biology. Only a small part of people asked do not feel confident about Synthetic Biology.
Figure 3 The blue bar refers to Austria and the orange one to the United Kingdom. SA stands for Strongly Agree, A for Agree, NS for Not Sure, D for Disagree, SD for Strongly Disagree and NA for not applicable.
A huge part of Austrians and people from UK do not feel sure about using products made with genetic engineering (Fig.3). Thus more educational work should be done in both countries to provide more information. However, only a small stake of people asked would refuse to use products, produced by GMOs, completely.
Figure 4 The blue bar refers to Austria and the orange one to the United Kingdom. SA stands for Strongly Agree, A for Agree, NS for Not Sure, D for Disagree, SD for Strongly Disagree and NA for not applicable.
In Austria as well as in the UK people asked (strongly) agree that they feel confident about using genetic engineering for medical purposes (Fig.4). Only a few percent of people of both countries disagreed at this point.
Figure 5 The blue bar refers to Austria and the orange one to the United Kingdom. SA stands for Strongly Agree, A for Agree, NS for Not Sure, D for Disagree, SD for Strongly Disagree and NA for not applicable.
A majority of people asked in Austria and in the UK did not feel sure about if it is difficult to take part in real scientific discussion (Fig.5). Interestingly the British are more confident about scientific discussions than Austrians. Just a slight amount of people from the UK found it difficult to take part in scientific discussions, where else nearly 40 percent of Austrians find science-related discussions difficult or very difficult.
Further information about people asked in Austria/United Kingdom
Figure 6 The blue bar refers to Austria and the orange one to the United Kingdom. SA stands for Strongly Agree, A for Agree, NS for Not Sure, D for Disagree, SD for Strongly Disagree and NA for not applicable.
Nearly all Austrians feel more informed about Synthetic Biology and Genetic Engineering after our outreach activities. Nearly 70% of the British asked felt are more confident about the topic.
Figure 7 The blue bar refers Austria and the orange one United Kingdom. SA stands for Strongly Agree, A for Agree, NS for Not Sure, D for Disagree, SD for Strongly Disagree and NA for not applicable.
The major part of Austrians and also of people from the UK enjoyed the outreach of our team.
Figure 8 The major part of Austrians and also of people from the UK enjoyed the outreach of our team.
Most people of both countries are interested to learn more about Synthetic Biology after our outreach activity.
