Source: EPSO News N°14 / November 2009
Newsletter of the European Plant Science Organization
By Jan Kellman, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology
Why outreach activities?
“Is there a need to do plant science at all?” Regrettably, this question is not uncommonly asked by both juniors and seniors in the lay public when visiting “green” research
institutions.
Is one reason for such a query that we can buy foodstuffs – vegetables as well as meat – throughout the year and regardless of the seasons in large varieties (and, once in a while, large amounts!)?
Actually, it appears that more and more Europeans have reached living standards which include fully stocked groceries and supermarkets and never have seen, or have perhaps forgotten, what empty shelves in a bakery look like. Apparently, people have the impression that agriculture nowadays functions automatically and thus research to facilitate plant breeding and plant protection is no longer needed.
Fearing that the number of people ignorant of the importance of plant science is increasing (and perhaps will at least as long as Europe prospers), our institute, about five years ago, decided to be proactive in providing information about plant science and its potential applications in agriculture and environmental issues. The target audience was not only visitors who doubt the importance of plant science, but also youth, in an effort to make work in research and academia attractive, thereby also fighting the impending deficiency of skilled labourers in the near future.
We have run several kinds of one-day outreach activities including “open house” events, guided tours through our laboratories, and retraining of teachers in modern biology. However, we have noticed that long-term activities pay off more than one-day ‘dog-and-pony-show’ type scientific events such as the “Long Night of the Sciences” which at the moment seem to deluge many European college towns!
So, best practices?
One such long-term and successful activity we have inaugurated in our institute is a Thuringian invention: the supervision of a so-called “High School Senior Thesis” (Seminar-Facharbeit). A group of two to four high school scholars works over a time period of about two years with a group of scientists, mostly PhD students and post docs. The pupils both conduct interviews with scientists and perform experiments in our laboratories. In doing so, they receive substantial training and advice from our scientists in formulating scientific hypotheses and shaping and writing a scientific thesis. The added value for both the scholars and our scientists is obvious: while the pupils appreciate regular contact with “their” supervising scientists and performing experiments in a real research laboratory, our staff get helping hands for routine work at the bench or in the field. Together, they can better share their excitement and passion for science.
If a ‘High School Senior Thesis’ supervising PhD student is enrolled in our International Max Planck Research School, this supervision fulfills his or her public relations requirement, which is a mandatory part of the Research School’s curriculum. One very successful ‘High School Senior Thesis’ was entitled “Black Nightshade, a model plant in-between a natural scientific and societal dispute”. Here, the pupils, among other things, accompanied field release experiments with transgenic plants and hence learned and experienced the controversy about GMOs both in Germany and Europe. One of these scholars now studies plant biology.
“Ask the Pea”
Another successful activity is the publication of a booklet-box called “Frag die Erbse – Das Einmaleins der modernen Pflanzenforschung” (Ask the Pea – The Basics of Modern Plant Research), initiated and written by Ursula Ross-Stitt from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in cooperation with other research institutions and published by the “Wissenschaftlerkreis Grüne Gentechnik e.V.” The first edition in 2007 contained three booklets focusing on: History & Basics; Plant Breeding; Environment & Ecology. “Frag die Erbse” was distributed all over Germany free of charge to different target groups ranging from teachers to politicians, the interested public (e.g. in the city's tourist information centre) and to school kids.
Establishing an outreach activities working group at EPSO?
With the examples mentioned here, I would like to encourage EPSO members and other stakeholders of plant science to establish a working group for designing and initiating EPSObased
outreach activities all over Europe. I am convinced that, in the long run, sustainable and successful performance of plant science in Europe, politically as well as scientifically, only takes place if the need for plant research is constantly advertised to the public, as one of the most basic necessities for mankind – since plants are the primary producers of biomass in ecosystems, and primary producers of foodstuffs for all of us. To really reach out we will do this in places far beyond the institutes and schools, such as cafes, clubs and tourism offices.
Source: http://www.epsoweb.org/commun/EpsoNews/NL14%20extract%20edited.pdf
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