A comprehensive strategy to communicate Drosophila research to the public

Transcription

1 Faculty of Life Sciences The University of Manchester A comprehensive strategy to communicate Drosophila research to the public Andreas

2 Fly research: the opportunities Drosophila is an important pillar in the process of scientific discovery However...

3 Fly research: the challenge Wangler et al., 2015 Genetics 199, 639ff. potential decreasing trend in fly research funding? Drosophila: a boundary object between genetics and biology (Keller, 1996, Hist Stud Phys Biol Sci 26, 313ff.) If so, why? There are now other boundary objects (fish, frog, mouse) new possibilities through CRISPR We need to refine our arguments! Trend towards translational research: fly contributions not intuitive Explain the important roles of flies in the translational pipeline

4 You get 10 times more biology for a dollar invested in flies than you get in mice (Hugo Bellen) AND BIOLOGY IS THE LIFEBLOOD FOR TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH!

5 Fly research: the challenge The public has an increasing impact on research funding, however... "...outside [drosophilist?] academic circles the fly's public image remains as low as ever.... we seem reluctant to accept that this tiny creature can teach us anything, let alone anything about ourselves." still in schools? views of Uni students? are next of kin aware?

6 Fly research: the challenge The public has an increasing impact on research funding, however... "...outside [drosophilist?] academic circles the fly's public image remains as low as ever.... we seem reluctant to accept that this tiny creature can teach us anything, let alone anything about ourselves." still in schools? views of Uni students? are next of kin aware? "...the fruit fly, an insect with a woefully poor track record in public relations" Does the fly community do enough? Whom to target?

7 Fly outreach: the target audiences General non-scientists (lay people, teachers/schools, policy makers) non-drosophilist scientists & clinicians in academia or industry Uni students in our direct influence zone start as general public develop into future colleagues Fellow drosophilists awareness of #scicomm requirements exchange ideas, share resources (avoid having to re-invent the wheel) build outreach platforms/networks (gain momentum, improve quality) Let's go for it?

8 Fly outreach: the obstacles Drosophilists have no efficient communication means social media: not effective in biologist communities FlyBase has no longer reliable lists of current fly groups/researchers standard Journals: slow & not particularly open to non-scientific contents Do we have the time? NO, but......if we make #scicomm a community effort, we can reduce time investment...it can be time well spent, with important personal/scientific gain

9 Strategies, activies and resources of the Manchester Fly Facility Sanjai Patel and other Manchester colleagues What is our key objective?

10 Fly outreach: objective setting simple non-technocratic objective (1987): bring the salmon back into the Rhine and its side rivers by 2000 result: by 1997 the salmon was back, and pollution improved by % simple objective: bring students back into University who find invertebrate model organisms important and cool. result:... This simple objective has inspired most of our activities at many levels!

11 Reaching (future) students in their family contexts: Science Fairs

12 Reaching students in their family contexts: Science Fairs showing presence with multiple displays

13 Reaching students in their family contexts: Science Fairs generating eye-catching displays Large screen movies with catchy titles Posters

14 Reaching students in their family contexts: Science Fairs have common events with vertebrate researchers and clinicians Flies can contribute the fundamental biology!

15 Reaching students in their family contexts: Science Fairs a central stand informing about the wider background In the multistand scenario you can have a central poster - e.g. attract and explain to bystanding parents

16 Communication strategies historical roots Thomas Hunt Morgan ( ) Charles Darwin ( ) Hugo de Vries ( ) Walter Sutton Theodor Boveri ( ) ( ) Audiences are curious to hear how flies came into research! Gregor Mendel ( )

17 Communication strategies relevance, personal links 5 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine 75% of human disease genes have fly homologues Aggression Motivation Behaviour films comparing boxing dear vs. boxing flies, or free climbers vs. Rohland Strauss' flies on stepping stones

18 Conclusions for Science Fairs Science fairs are a fantastic playground to test ideas - you can observe the effects of arguments & activities Be ambitious, aim for high quality - have briefings, clear exhibition plans and objectives, have de-briefings Science fair activities inspire other outreach activities experiments for schools communication strategies Note, all our resources are available on request! Enhance the experience with online resources

19 Online resources Trojan horse strategy Have attractive leaflets that children want to take home - below display links to online resources

20 Online resources Films and web pages Our YouTube videos also proved to be of high educational value also in schools!

21 Targeting schools directly School activities Aim: Establish Drosophila as a modern teaching tool in biology lessons. Flies are ideal: excellent conceptual understanding of curriculum-relevant biology quantity of knowledge: an impressive pool of opportunities & examples feasible to have flies as living objects in classrooms cheap & simple experiments reflecting relevant, contemporary research

22 Targeting schools directly school visits: ~200 pupils in 8 groups have four 20 min sessions each Before sessions, have an introductory lecture...

23 Targeting schools directly an easy start How many legs does a fly have? How many wings does a fly have? How many Drosophila researchers got the Nobel Prize? Same communication strategy as mentioned before

24 Targeting schools directly Session: concepts of nervous systems epileptic flies wiring principles shibire TS optogenetic tools action potentials synaptic transmission

25 Targeting schools directly Session: classical genetics ~ 30 A HARIBO activity ("Kids and grown-ups love it so...") 1. Focus wheel 2. Light source 3. Base 4. Eyepieces

26 Targeting schools directly relevance of marker mutations, modern genetic markers, Punnett squares Explain what we use marker mutations for: Stock keeping as an example

27 Targeting schools directly Session: climbing test - compare young vs old flies movie: 04-ClimbingAssay Compare climbing performance of young vs. old flies

28 Targeting schools directly statistics Excel drawing graphs online support on "droso4schools"

29 Targeting schools directly relevance: explaining background & uses normal plus α-synuclein Feany & Bender (2000) Paul de Saint-Leger (1879) modified from Feany & Bender (2000)

30 Targeting schools directly Many more ideas and possibilities Topic alcohol: fermentation enzymatic function gene to protein concepts concepts of gene expression concepts of gene variation concepts of Darwinian evolution Teaching life cycle in primary schools

31 Targeting schools directly Many more ideas and possibilities Scratch programming in ICT lessons Scratch was developed at MIT to introduce children to the logic of programming; often used in schools

32 Targeting schools directly Many more ideas and possibilities Comparative teaching of organs and their functions An active way to think about the fundamental roles and funcions of our organs

33 Targeting schools directly Support teachers with resources and advice Genotype builder & Genetics manual Instructions, e.g. how to make & use a pooter Fly food Flies Feedback on teaching materials sent by teachers How to extend school outreach?

34 Targeting schools directly droso4schools project aim: actively involve teachers PhD internship students work in schools to develop teaching resources with flies Powerpoints and support materials free for download supported by a dedicated website We now spin these resources out to teachers

35 Conclusions for School activities Using Drosophila as a modern teaching tool: memorable activity with long term effects a natural way to introduce flies to young audiences an opportunity to improve conceptual teaching of biology teachers can become important multiplicators Raise impact by linking school activities to curriculumrelevant biology specifications

36 Targeting university students University resources Many of the resources available for the public and schools are suitable for Uni beginners To develop them into future researchers:

37 Targeting university students Drosophila mating scheme design on Uni courses Prokop, A. (2013). 2nd year Drosophila developmental genetics practical. Large scale: a hybrid strategy to assess all aspects of mating scheme design electronically

38 Conclusions for Uni resources Training in mating scheme design.. introduces to concepts of model organisms & flies teaches classical genetics in form of active learning, in an integrated manner, and as training in complex problem solving reflects relevant contemporary research & can be directly applied can be used as a flexible module (~8 contact hours) on any course of choice - ideal to address Rosemary Redfield's point of leading genetics teaching into the new era

39 Targeting....fellow drosophilists A one-stop-shop for FlyBase compatible information Key aim: transparency, find brothers-in-arms & gain momentum across the fly community

40 Targeting scientists - the fly community a one-stop-shop for information Casey

41 Targeting scientists - the fly community a one-stop-shop for information collection of ~100 lay article links all outreach-relevant links we are aware of list of fly history articles

42 Conclusions One overarching objective inspired multifaceted outreach Essential advances of multifaceted approaches: reaches a wider spectrum of target audiences Keeps the outreach far more interesting for all involved cross-fertilisation between activities essential outcome: gradual quality improvement Manchester's Busy Bee

43 search for "Manchester Fly Facility" This talk will be made available recent article: recent blog: poppi62.wordpress.com/ Let us know if you need anything, let us know of any new resources, use our platform to publish your resources, help us to translate resources into other languages, etc...