"What I cannot create I do not understand."
- Richard Feynmann

Awareness

In our opinion it is very important that synthetic biology gets attention in the public. People should talk about synthetic biology and learn how useful it can be. To reach as many people as possible and explain them the benefits of synthetic biology we published an article about our education project in a regional newspaper. This article is not only about the human practices education project, but also about what synthetic biology is and how it can be used to help people. We hope to decrease prejudices people might have against synthetic biology, and to enhance acceptance. A second article was published in the ETH-student magazine, which reaches thousands of students of various disciplines. That way we hope to show them what iGEM is about and to motivate them for a possible future participation.

Summary

To get the publics attention we did the following:

We published an article about our human practices school project in the newspaper. This article also explains what synthetic biology is and why it can be so useful.
Together with the team of EPF Lausanne wie did a survey in the streets of basel and asked people to tell us their opinion about synthetic biology.
We published an article (link) in the ETH student magazine polykum which reaches a lot of students of various disciplines.

Engaging the public with EPFL

Survey Summary

In collaboration with EPFL we interviewed a total of 70 persons in the two major Swiss cities Lausanne and Basel. The following questions were asked in order to estimate the public understanding and appreciation of Synthetic biology. Results are displayed as percentages.