2019 AISL PI Meeting Poster: Multi-Site Public Engagement with Science

The is the poster presented at the 2019 AISL PI Meeting about a project that explored ways to create conversations between scientists and publics that both groups value and learn from. The content focus was the emerging field of synthetic biology and two methods were developed. Hands-on activities like those developed and distributed by the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network were developed but with the twist that each activity was designed to stimulate a conversation about societal implications of various applications of synthetic biology. Scientists and science students were trained to facilitate the activities with public audiences and to engage them in one-on-one conversations. The second method uses involved longer (2-hour) dialogue programs or forums in which scientists and publics discussed specific application scenarios together at round tables after hearing short presentations by experts in the field. The conversations followed facilitation materials that prompted discussion of policy issues related to engineering mosquitos, other non-human genomes, and editing the human genome. Both scientists and publics reported gains from both kinds of engagement.