Successful science communication is vital for our society
The education of the general public is a vital part of any scientific endeavor. In order to move forward as a society, it is important that the public is informed and taught about new innovations and advancements in science and technology and is made aware of the new possibilities. This needs to be achieved through successful science communication. For the latter to be most successful, the responsibility should fall on the scientific community itself, as they are the ones most familiar with the topics. Only if a high level of public awareness for a problem or a scientific advancement is achieved, can the innovation successfully take hold.
Especially at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people were quickly educated on the virus itself, its high rate of infection and its many variations. Through this, policies could more easily be explained and acceptance by the public was generally high. Later on in the pandemic, public websites gave people the opportunity to retrieve information on the current incidence values in their region. These educational campaigns gave people both the understanding of the problem at hand, as well as the feeling of being involved independently.
In other situations, science communication can be much more difficult. Especially when the cause and effect of a problem have a large timespan between them, it becomes more difficult for people to accept that they might need to change their behavior right now. This is the case with the climate catastrophe. Politicians who wish to be re-elected often prefer introducing policies that make people’s lives better in the short term rather than after their term in power has ended. In these situations, successful science communication might be more difficult, but it is even more important. Only when many people understand such a long-term problem, can they take action themselves or elect politicians who are not afraid of bringing about solutions that become noticeable only years after their term.
Especially at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people were quickly educated on the virus itself, its high rate of infection and its many variations. Through this, policies could more easily be explained and acceptance by the public was generally high. Later on in the pandemic, public websites gave people the opportunity to retrieve information on the current incidence values in their region. These educational campaigns gave people both the understanding of the problem at hand, as well as the feeling of being involved independently.
In other situations, science communication can be much more difficult. Especially when the cause and effect of a problem have a large timespan between them, it becomes more difficult for people to accept that they might need to change their behavior right now. This is the case with the climate catastrophe. Politicians who wish to be re-elected often prefer introducing policies that make people’s lives better in the short term rather than after their term in power has ended. In these situations, successful science communication might be more difficult, but it is even more important. Only when many people understand such a long-term problem, can they take action themselves or elect politicians who are not afraid of bringing about solutions that become noticeable only years after their term.
GMOs and society have a difficult relationship
In using genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to create a solution for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) pollution, we knew from the beginning of our project that we could face challenges in the acceptance of our solution. GMOs are still highly controversial in the eyes of many and the discussion about their usage in agriculture, medicine and biological engineering is oftentimes very emotional. The problem lies in the perception of GMOs by the general public. When many people think about GMOs, they think about genetically engineered humans and fear that their own DNA could be damaged by consuming genetically modified vegetables or fruits. Such fears result for example in there being a specific label for products in supermarkets, that ensures GMO-free production. This contributes to the overall negative connotation that GMOs are already facing, and it also makes it much more difficult for people to understand that GMOs can be impactful tools against important crises all around the world such as world hunger, environmental pollution and the climate crisis. This made it even more apparent to us that we would really need to make sure that during our educational projects we understood our audiences and planned our educational structure accordingly.
“BIOspektrum” article: Education for a scientific audience
Thanks to Biospektrum, a large journal in the field of Biology, we had the pleasure of presenting our project to a scientific audience in the form of an article in its September 2024 issue. Due to the scientific nature of this journal, we had the opportunity to dive straight into the genetical engineering and technical details of our project, without having to explain the basics. We could highlight the exact strain of Pseudomonas vancouverensis that we used as our platform together with its already impressive abilities and describe how we were enhancing it to be able to degrade not two but three of the most numerous and most dangerous PAHs: naphthalene, phenanthrene and pyrene. Through the article, we also had the opportunity to describe and explain our entire project in a very concise manner, building on the knowledge that the audience of Biospektrum is equipped with.
School class visit at our laboratory: a curious audience with general knowledge in biology
In early May we had the great opportunity of showing a class of high school students our lab and giving them a presentation of our project. As we were very enthusiastic about our project, this was a great way for us to give high school students a feeling for the opportunities at our university and the great experiences that a project like iGEM offers. We could also make the students aware of the problem that we were tackling with our project and show them how different disciplines can work together and use the tools and methods taught at a university like the Technical University of Darmstadt to successfully develop scientific solutions to local problems. This meant that not only could we educate them on our project and the genetical engineering that we were doing, but also give them valuable insight into the life of university students and motivate them to approach local problems that they might encounter themselves with a scientific toolbox.
Presentation at the 2024 Heinerfest Darmstadt: Explaining genetic engineering to a diverse
audience
Our biggest educational project was our presentation at this year’s Students Lounge at the Heinerfest in Darmstadt. The Heinerfest is the largest public festival in Darmstadt and this year had its 75th anniversary. We saw this as the perfect opportunity to bring our project to a larger and more diverse audience and to spread awareness for PAH pollution in aquatic ecosystems. Of course, we also saw this as a way to destigmatize GMOs and give people without scientific backgrounds a better understanding of what genetic engineering is, forming fact-based opinions while dismantling prejudices.
We knew that our audience would range from interested students with basic knowledge in biology across young families all the way to elderly people, whose last real contact with biological subjects might have been decades ago. Since the Heinerfest is a very open space all around the city center, there would also be the occasional people just walking in on our presentation during a casual walk through the city. In order to reach this diverse audience in the best way, we needed to break down the science we were using to an accessible level. To achieve this, we used easy to understand, visual ways of portraying both oil and PAH pollution as well as the genetic modifications we made to Pseudomonas.
We portrayed the difficulty of oil-water-separation by attempting to clear a bowl of water of an oil film using several different common household items like sponges, spoons and coffee filters. After this introduction we used a visual representation of pyrene with different colored sides of different colored rings. One team member portrayed Pseudomonas with different colored scissors. To fully degrade the PAH, Pseudomonas needed to have all the right colored scissors in its toolbox. This way, we could in a simple manner show what our enhancement of Pseudomonas actually meant, which is giving it all the necessary abilities to achieve something that conventional cleanup methods cannot manage.
The Heinerfest was a great opportunity for us to spread awareness for the problem we identified to a large and diverse audience, and to also break our project down in a way that everyone could understand our methods and aims, no matter their background and previous experiences.
We knew that our audience would range from interested students with basic knowledge in biology across young families all the way to elderly people, whose last real contact with biological subjects might have been decades ago. Since the Heinerfest is a very open space all around the city center, there would also be the occasional people just walking in on our presentation during a casual walk through the city. In order to reach this diverse audience in the best way, we needed to break down the science we were using to an accessible level. To achieve this, we used easy to understand, visual ways of portraying both oil and PAH pollution as well as the genetic modifications we made to Pseudomonas.
We portrayed the difficulty of oil-water-separation by attempting to clear a bowl of water of an oil film using several different common household items like sponges, spoons and coffee filters. After this introduction we used a visual representation of pyrene with different colored sides of different colored rings. One team member portrayed Pseudomonas with different colored scissors. To fully degrade the PAH, Pseudomonas needed to have all the right colored scissors in its toolbox. This way, we could in a simple manner show what our enhancement of Pseudomonas actually meant, which is giving it all the necessary abilities to achieve something that conventional cleanup methods cannot manage.
The Heinerfest was a great opportunity for us to spread awareness for the problem we identified to a large and diverse audience, and to also break our project down in a way that everyone could understand our methods and aims, no matter their background and previous experiences.
Meeting up with TuCan Sensus and CompuGene: Education is a two-way street as well
Conducting a project like iGEM as a small team of students comes with many challenges and ups and downs. So, it felt only right to get together with TU Darmstadt’s team for the Sensus Challenge, another student project team competition, and the student lab CompuGene. We were able to present our project to other groups of highly motivated students and gather feedback and new points of view. We could also see how they worked as a group and what they had implemented to ensure success with their teams. This meeting filled us with new motivation and enthusiasm for our project.