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Team:BGU Israel/Outreach
From 2013.igem.org
Outreach Introduction
We embarked on a massive outreach campaign to encourage discourse with the public about synthetic biology, in order to dispel misconceptions and foster debate. Our outreach campaign was aimed at reaching as many people from different communities and age groups as possible. We wanted to burst out of the invisible walls separating the academy from the general public and trigger discussions in a variety of platforms, making the subject accessible to all.
SynBio for Kids
It’s a cliché, but children really are the future (and so is synthetic biology!). We ran fun synbio activities at Science Night, a children’s science festival, and created an activity kit that others can use to help kids learn about synthetic biology.
Science Night
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Activity Kit
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Media
We took a two-pronged approach to our media campaign in order to make synthetic biology accessible to as many people as possible through a wide variety of channels.
New Media: The Bottom-Up Approach
For many people, new media, including websites, blogs, and social networks, has become a major source of information about the world. Its unique advantage over forms of traditional media is that it enables a direct dialog between the public and the source, in which people can express their positions freely. It can also make information accessible to a wider range of people, who are not involved in the field or who don’t read traditional news sources. For researchers, new media is an important tool to enable a complex issue, such as synthetic biology, to become accessible for the general public. During the past months, we addressed the public through a wide range of channels, including:
- A number of blogs.
- Podcasts
- We opened a Youtube channel featuring a whiteboard animation explaining our project and a number of other videos of our group at various events.
- Our official Facebook page received more than 3,000 likes and has reached over 200,000 people from over 20 different countries. The page has allowed us to directly interact with people and answer their concerns and questions, and we have received hundreds of messages and comments on Facebook. Our personal favorite was a message from a fourteen year old girl: ”Science has been my biggest dream since I was a child. You have inspired me to believe I can fulfill this dream one day.” She heard about the project through a popular Facebook page called ”Tweeting Statuses”, which posted a goofy picture of the team with a caption explaining our project, and got around 3,400 likes and over 600 shares the day it was posted.
- We also launched a crowd-funding campaign, in which we introduced synthetic biology and asked for help from the public to raise the last of the needed funds to participate in the competition. The campaign was very successful, raising 171% of our initial goal.
Conventional Media: The Top-Down Approach
Special Events
Ever go to a wine-tasting and get a taste of synthetic biology? Or read a great science fiction novel and discover that actually, it’s close to becoming reality? Or attended a day of lectures for the general public inspired by synthetic biology?
Wine Festival
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Gooogle
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Yanki
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Art
To spice up our outreach efforts, we looked for humorous, creative and fun ways to promote synthetic biology. One of our initiatives was connecting synthetic biology to art!
SynBio Caricature Competition
We organized a synthetic biology caricature contest that we advertised in various art programs and on Facebook, to give a chance for art creative way to explain synthetic biology in an illustration of any kind. Our purpose was both to collect funny and sharp caricatures and to let people with no biological background think about synthetic biology and describe it or criticize it using art.
Gallery in the University
Bio Ethics
We wanted to engage the community in a discussion of the ethical questions involved in synthetic biology, and so we crowdsourced for questions for an ethics FAQ.
Q:A: Q:A: Q:A: Q:A:
