During our project we seek contact to people at different occasions to spread the word about synthetic biology and our project. Output is what we impart to the society. Here we describe how we visit high school classes, how we were represented at an open house day and how we go to a science slam.

School visits

The lessons are prepared in agreement with the teachers to meet the level of knowledge already present. We impart the principles of synthetic biology and encourage the students to participate in solving an exercise problem using their acquired knowledge. Thus, we increase the level of awareness of synthetic biology and show how complex problems can be approached at the same time. The slides our team uses will be available for downloading on this page soon.

Open house day at the department

On the open house day of D-BSSE of ETH (Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering) and the Biozentrum of the University of Basel the public could get an impression of the scientific laboratories and the work done there. The many different labs opened their doors to the public and scientists gave interested people an insight in their daily work. So did the ETH iGEM team 2014. The team was present with a poster showing the history of iGEM, explaining the projects of previous ETH iGEM teams and giving general information about synthetic biology. Additionally, a slideshow presented a best-of photo collection of last years jamboree. The goal of this day was to inform the public about synthetic biology in general and specifically about the spirit and the projects of iGEM. Many people showed strong interest and eagerly anticipated to follow our project’s development during the next months on our wiki.

Science Slam Basel

A science slam is all about presenting scientific work to a broad public in a short time and in understandable, entertaining terms. This is what Elise of our team is doing in Basel on October 10th. Then the Science Slam Basel takes place and Elise will give her best to explain iGEM and our project. We are curious to see how she simplifies our complex project to make it comprehensible and catchy.

iGEM ETH Zurich 2014 and social media

Today’s society relies more and more on the internet. For many people of the younger generations Facebook and twitter are important media for communication. This is why our team has an account on Facebook and on twitter where all the breaking news are spread at the moment of their occurrence. So many people can be reached almost instantaneously. Both accounts refer to our wiki where more background information can be found. We think sharing the news of our project on social media platforms increases the attention people give to synthetic biology. In many people curiosity arises after seeing a post or a picture on Facebook with a short description of what we have done in our project. Thus people who would never get into with iGEM and the many different projects are caught and directed to visit the wiki to learn more.

Discourse at the after work pint

In the context of the weekly after work pint we presented the iGEM competition and our research project. We took advantage of the informal meeting to discuss our ideas with scientists of the department. The discourse was highly inspiring, encouraging and supportive.

Interview with NZZ campus

By the end of October an article about dealing with criticism related to the subject of study will appear in the NZZ campus. In an interview Stefanie discussed diffuse fears, ignorance or prejudices that are often connected with criticism in connection with synthetic biology and microbiology. It is important to seek a constructive dialogue to increase awareness of biotechnology.