Harnessing robotic automation and web-based technologies to modernize scientific outreach
Authors
Dahan, OrnaDorfman, Bat-Shahar
Sayin, Serkan
Rosener, Brittany
Hua, Tiffany
Yarden, Anat
Mitchell, Amir
UMass Chan Affiliations
Graduate School of Biomedical SciencesProgram in Molecular Medicine
Program in Systems Biology
Document Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2019-06-26Keywords
TeachersAntibiotic resistance
Internet
Robotics
Schools
Spectrophotometers
Antibiotics
Science education
Educational Technology
Health Communication
Medical Education
Online and Distance Education
Science and Mathematics Education
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Technological breakthroughs in the past two decades have ushered in a new era of biomedical research, turning it into an information-rich and technology-driven science. This scientific revolution, though evident to the research community, remains opaque to nonacademic audiences. Such knowledge gaps are likely to persist without revised strategies for science education and public outreach. To address this challenge, we developed a unique outreach program to actively engage over 100 high-school students in the investigation of multidrug-resistant bacteria. Our program uses robotic automation and interactive web-based tools to bridge geographical distances, scale up the number of participants, and reduce overall cost. Students and teachers demonstrated high engagement and interest throughout the project and valued its unique approach. This educational model can be leveraged to advance the massive open online courses movement that is already transforming science education.Source
PLoS Biol. 2019 Jun 26;17(6):e3000348. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000348. eCollection 2019 Jun. Link to article on publisher's site
DOI
10.1371/journal.pbio.3000348Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/41108PubMed ID
31242174Related Resources
Rights
Copyright: © 2019 Dahan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Distribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1371/journal.pbio.3000348
Scopus Count
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Copyright: © 2019 Dahan et al. This is an open
access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.