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Team:Sheffield/sociobricks/Part:SBa F1001/main
From 2014.igem.org
Registry of Standard Policy and Practice Parts
SBa_F1001: Outreach
Description
The aim of outreach is to educate others about topics that they may not already be aware of. It can be used to aid bridging of the knowledge deficit that can be seen between groups.
The knowledge deficit model states that within society, there is a divide between experts (within iGEM, scientists, engineers and social scientists) and non-experts. Because of this divide, there may be skepticism from the non-expert group towards, in this case, new science and technological advances. By involving everyone in the advances and allowing people to have their input, the gap between the two groups can be bridged to allow further advances when everyone has the same level of knowledge.
Alongside this as motivation to carry out this outreach, the constructivism theory (Jean Piaget 1896 - 1980) can be of use when trying to plan how to educate others and why it could be carried out this way for more effectiveness. This theory states that humans create knowledge and meaning by linking their experiences to their ideas. In terms of teaching practices, the learners could carry out experiments and real-world problem solving to create knowledge and reflect on how their understanding is changing through this.
