School visits
One of our goals of this project was to increase public knowledge of fungal diseases. We also wanted to introduce young students to the field of biotechnology. To do this, we visited three high school classes and held lectures where we talked about both fungal diseases, our project, and biotechnology in general. We also talked about what it’s like to study biotechnology at a university level, about what Chalmers is like, and answered any questions they had. We adapted the lectures we held for the three different classes since they all had different backgrounds. For example, we talked more about lab work and our university program with the biotechnology class, and more about general biotechnology with the technology class, since they were much newer to the subject.
Below, the slides to one of our presentations can be found. They were used with the biotechnology class, and went into more technical detail than our other presentations.
Before the lecture, the students were allowed to answer a poll on if they had a positive or negative attitude towards being treated with bacteria for a disease. Afterward, they were allowed to answer the poll again for us to see how education and information can change attitudes and remove uncertainty and fear. We saw that the attitude became far more positive after the lecture and when we discussed this with the students they talked about not being strictly against it in the beginning but more unsure, and when they were unsure they leaned towards the negative. This we think represents many examples like anti-vaxx where uncertainty of research tends to opposition. The increase in willingness to be treated with a bacterial medicine after the lecture shows how much interaction with researchers and receiving information about something can do. To be informed in a way that is non-condescending and catered to your background seems to better the public's outlook on biotechnological advancements.
We got wonderful questions from both the students and staff, and we hope that our lectures have not only spread awareness of fungal diseases, but also inspired some of the students to pursue a career in science. Even if they don’t, we hope that by communicating our findings and process, we can increase their understanding of science and biotechnology to help de-mystify it. We are very grateful for the opportunity to speak to these students, and wish them the best of luck with their future endeavours.
Collaboration
Lastly, we were very happy to help fellow iGEM team Ioannina from Greece with their educational work. They created two wonderful children’s stories that inform on the topic of synthetic biology. We revised both the Swedish and German translations of their stories and are happy to have been able to connect with them. We hope that our translations can aid in spreading enthusiasm in the field.
Social media
Another part of our goal to spread knowledge of fungal diseases was our social media presence. We posted about our project on Instagram, where we in simple terms described the work that we wanted to do and why it is important. The content was made visually interesting and playful to increase engagement. As of writing this text there are over 800 views in total and a fair portion of the likes appeared as the readers scrolled to the last slide. The majority of the slides can be viewed in the picture gallery below.