Communication and Education

Throughout the summer, we sent monthly newsletters to our sponsors, industrial partners and all the contributors of the project. The aim was to keep updated all those who supported us and allowed the project to exist. This included updates on experiments, media coverage, events and results.

In order to boost engagement with the public and promote our project, we have used two of the most popular social media platforms: Instagram and Linkedin.

Through our strategy we hoped to achieve three key goals:
• Inform members of our private networks and people outside the field of biology about what iGEM is and the power of synthetic biology as a tool to tackle a variety of issues;
• Share what our project was about in order to engage with other iGEM teams, sponsors, and members of the scientific community;
• Communicate and interact with other iGEM teams in a spirit of collaboration and integration within the iGEM community at large.

To do this we produced informative posts as well as updates and engaging content which allowed us to interact with our followers by asking questions in the stories and sharing pictures from our days in the lab. We were mindful to adapt our communication style to the platform, using a more casual tone on Instagram and a more formal one on Linkedin where we mostly engaged with sponsors.

We developed a core look to uniform our social media communication and ensure our unique look was simple yet easily recognisable. We created a mascot named “Lunar Plant Specie One”, shortened to LUPSO, to further increase the recognisability of our team. With its simple design, LUPSO is easy to recognise and its design lends itself to multiple reinterpretation, by drawing him in different situations according to needs.

Overall, our efforts have allowed us to interact with other teams, especially in the organization of our MiniJamb event, and keep sponsors informed on our progress and activities, as well as provide information on the importance of synthetic biology and the relevance of the issue we are tackling to those who were previously unaware. This not only allowed us to bring more attention to our project, but to also further contribute to spreading information on iGEM as a whole.

The purpose of our Promotion Video was to make a clear and educational content, so that it would be accessible to as many people as possible, specialists or not. Because our project is dense in information, we used the intervention of our mascot, LUPSO, and effective animations to help the public better understand each scientific module. We imagined a simple scenario around our product BioMoon, from its design to its delivery into space, that everybody can easily follow. Thanks to the beautiful expositions at the Cité de l’Espace, a space science culture center in our city Toulouse, we immersed the audience into a space context, as if a permanent lunar base was already real.

Like the two previous years, INSA Toulouse hosted an iGEM Meet-Up on its campus, on the 4th and 5th of July. If the two previous editions were only with French teams, the choice was made this year to invite teams from other countries, in order to give an international accent to this event and to feel as close as possible to the final competition.

The purpose of this Mini Jamboree was multiple. All iGEM teams attending were given the opportunity to present their projects to judges, and receive questions and feedback as preparation for the Grand Jamboree. Prizes were delivered for the Best Presentation (won by team Padua), the Best Pitch (won by team Wageningen), the Bioeconomy Prize (won by team Madrid) and the Favorite’s Audience (won by team Paris Ionis).

Representatives of industries, researchers and students from universities in Toulouse were also invited to promote connection and collaboration between industry professionals and teams.

Using various ways of communicating, BioMoon effectively reached the general public. Our engagement efforts, from newspaper articles and reports to social events, underlines the significance of transparent and accessible communication in research. This experience has been about learning, sharing, and working together. We are thankful for the connections we made, the support we received from experts, companies and researchers, and the difference we made in helping people understand how synthetic biology can be used in space exploration.

Education is a part where we try to engage more people into synthetic biology. Our strategy is to use BioMoon as a hook to create interest in pupils, then unroll different thematics, biology, agriculture, sustainability etc. Besides the iGEM requirements, education is a topic we are personally interested in, since succeeding in explaining complicated concepts in a simple way to kids is a very gratifying feeling. We targeted events and associations to get in touch with schoolers and teachers that would be interested to learn more about BioMoon, lunar agriculture and synthetic biology.

Exposciences Occitanie is an event organized each year in the North of Toulouse. Its saying is “Science by youngsters for youngsters”. Student teams, associations, etc, coming from all over the world (mainly from France but also from Luxemburg, Germany, and Mexico this year) can present their project or little animations to schoolers that come during the two days of exposition.

As the public was very young, we chose not to speak about our project BioMoon. Instead, we focused on visual ways to discover microbiology. We came up with a microscope, allowing young kids to observe the small world around them: soil, insects, moss, leaves, etc. Some samples were very fascinating, especially moss, where you can precisely see cells and chloroplasts. We also showcased the banana DNA extraction experiment. Using ethanol, soap, and salts we could show an “umbrella”, composed of DNA visible with the naked eye. It allowed us to illustrate the concept of genes in a simple way.

Finally, we discussed with another team that was exposing at exposcience, mid school Antoine Courrière. Students of 11 to 13 years old worked on ways to improve water retention in soils. They mainly investigated the roles of chemicals like sodium and potassium polyacrylates. BioMoon also aims to improve the soils physical properties, allowing us to find some similarities in our work and start a meaningful collaboration. As we were impressed by the interest and implication shown by the mid schoolers, we decided to talk with their teacher to organize a meet up in September at our INSA campus so we can work together.

Following our first meeting at Exposciences Occitanie, we scheduled a visit in our laboratories in September. The aim was to show them what a research laboratory looks like and allow them to perform experiments that would be considered basics for overgrad students but usually inaccessible for middle schoolers.

Firstly, we organized an activity to raise awareness about the presence of microorganisms in the soils. They had to collect soil samples, grass, leaves and roots. Then, they could observe life at two different size scales. Under the microscope (x100 magnification), small insects, plant cells and root details are visible. It always gives impressive pictures and they could learn at the same time how to prepare samples for microscopic observation. But to notice the presence of micro fungus and bacteria, they had to try a different method: cell culture on LB-agar plates. They were explained briefly how to use a microbiology safety cabinet and they incubated samples of soil and root for 48 hours on previously prepared agar plates at 30°C. We sent them the results two days after the activity, and they noticed the microorganisms that had grown, meaning the soil initially contained many of them.

For the second activity we launched a small contest. Separated in two teams, each one having specific soil and watering constraints, the aim was for the schoolers to propose a strategy and learn how to conduct a scientific experiment by performing controls. The results of their planting strategy were revealed and sent one week later to their teacher, so the activity could be further discussed in class.

In order to showcase more complex topics, we decided to lead an intervention with high-schoolers (around 17 years old), part of a special program called “Cordées de la réussite”.

Cordées de la réussite

“Cordée de la réussite” promotes equality by giving to precary students under eighteen additional lectures or activities, mainly given by volunteer students. Our intervention was part of a bigger project, where students regularly help mid or high schoolers by making them discover new topics, advising them on work methods, etc.

We started by showing them our promotion video and asked what they understood about it. We then discussed the notions of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria, essential nutrients for plants, metabolic engineering and so on, according to what caught the most of their attention.

Following the introduction about synthetic biology, they had to create a mind map about microbiology. It was a productive exercise since some of the students were not studying life sciences on a regular basis, allowing the small group to collaborate and learn all together.

We then played a game, for which they had to associate a few objects we commonly find in a laboratory with their name and their use. We pushed the exercise further by asking them to create a protocol to assess the survival rate of Pseudomonas fluorescens on regolith, using the material they just worked on.

We finished the two hour session with a quiz that summed up all the new concepts the students discovered today. We made that quiz competitive to stimulate students' interest and force them to give their best!

It was a very interesting, yet challenging activity for us, the main difficulty being to organize something meaningful for students of that age. We were lucky to have a small group of high schoolers (six students), which allowed us to take time with each of them and answer their specific questions.

We made an effort to make biology accessible for multiple audiences, from 7 to 18 years old, with various activities and exercises. Throughout our interventions we improved our communication and scientific vulgarization skills in order to deliver our messages in the most effective way. Connecting with younger schoolers was really important for us since we were sitting at their place not so long ago; we wanted to inspire them, maybe even spark vocations for future biological careers.