Introduction

The field of education fosters connections between people, providing a platform for educators to share knowledge, seek collaborations, and develop educational tools, resources, and projects that benefit the iGEM community. We wanted to do just that. We realize the responsibility we have and the sensitivity of the challenge we tackle with our project - the diagnosis and treatment of brain cancer. The children's book was created to explain the concept of brain cancer to children of all ages and abilities. The book was developed based on research about effective ways of teaching scientific topics to these groups. We included our research to empower the iGEM community to take a chance in creating more inclusive educational content. It is meant to help children understand brain cancer, whether they are personally affected or have loved ones who are. The book should be used with adult guidance, and it includes a FAQs section to provide accurate information and prevent confusion from online sources. Additionally, we got to engage first hand with people of all ages and teach them about synthetic biology. We hosted 17 exceptional high school students for one week and guided them in experiments. We also participated in the local city rally, where we introduced scientific topics to the general public in our "Street Science Project."

Our children’s guide to brain cancer

With this children’s book, we wanted to create an accessible resource that can help explain the concept of brain cancer to children without disability and children with intellectual disability (ID) or intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder (ID/ASD). We conducted research on how learning about scientific topics is best achieved for these groups of people. The knowledge gained from this research helped us in creating this children's book. We expect it to help children understand the concept of brain cancer, both if they are affected themselves or if their loved ones are. The book is intended to be used with the guidance of an adult only. To help adults answer any further questions that may occur, we included a frequently asked questions (FAQs) section in the back. This is to avoid looking up information online, where misinformation or over complicated science could interfere with the answering. We found this children’s book to be a necessary resource because while there are a lot of books out there that explain cancer, even targeted ones, such as “My grandma is a cancer fighting queen” written by Chelsey Gomez, we could not find a children’s book that explains brain cancer specifically. Additionally, it is unclear whether or not the existing books have been created with children with ID or ID/ASD in mind. There are explanations in video form out there, such as the video series “animations explaining brain tumours” from The Brain Tumour Charity, but we wanted to create a book to empower parents and other guardians to explain the situation themselves.

Our approach to teaching children is intended to meet multiple of the criteria for discovery learning. Find out more about discovery learning here. By catering towards kids who are either affected by brain cancer personally, or whose loved ones are inflicted with the disease, there is accessibility. The situation created in the book is vivid and the content is important to the child. We find the book to additionally meet the criteria of meaningfulness. Since it is exploring the general concept of fighting cancer, it lays the groundwork for a better understanding of the disease. Other fundamental ideas discussed include:

• the human body is made of cells
• the brain is an organ crucial to the body working properly
• everyone can be affected by cancer
• ... and many more

That is why we believe the story of Juna will be meaningful to all children that the book is read to. One of the reasons why we developed the storybook is the lack of necessary scientific understanding within the addressed group. The intended addressees either are not in school yet or are in their first years of institutionalized education. In Germany and presumably in most other countries as well, the aforementioned topics are not discussed in the first 4-6 years of school. This constructs the barrier; children have to first gain new information and understand the concepts. Only then, they can grasp the whole story of Juna. Lastly, the book is intended to approach both the children and the adults that read it to them in a way that is authentic to the science it is presenting. This creates authenticity. We also included elements that count for multiple exemplar training, task analytic instruction and time delay. All three of these will help children with ID and ID/ASD understand the concepts taught in the book.

The book will be open source available to anyone in pdf format, which makes it transcend financial barriers. We are aware that many children do not speak English and thus invite everyone to translate the book into different languages and publish it open source.

Teaching science to children

“Understanding always means inventing or reinventing, and every time the teacher gives a lesson instead of making the child act, he prevents the child from reinventing the answer.” - Piaget (1973, p. 36)

We as a team want to explore how teaching science to youth works and how it can be improved. For this, we want to gain a better understanding of the history of science education. The overview starts seemingly late in time, since science is a relatively recent addition to the school curriculum. This might come as a surprise, because of the elevated status that it holds as a subject today, but this has not always been the case [1]. There are five different time periods during which different main ideas have controlled the way science has been taught. During the mid-nineteenth century until the late 1880s, the recitation method was the most prevalent. Teaching using textbooks and the memorization of facts was the norm in other school subjects and was subsequently adopted for science as well [1]. After this period in time, there was a shift of focus from the head to the hands, from theory to practice. The laboratory method was introduced. The two different approaches clashed; the focus on student interest versus the disciplinary knowledge [1]. During the 1890s and until the first decade of the twentieth century, educators started to expand on the idea of doing science and identified that problem solving was a central skill that had to be learned [1]. In the 1950s until the late-twentieth century, the rote memorization of steps was the main approach to science education [1]. It can be described as though science were a kind of recipe that can be followed and will lead to success if one would just execute the steps right. Currently, scholars aspire to include both the nature of science and science literacy, and this has been the goal since the late-twentieth century [1]. There is a focus on testing knowledge, still, that has led to students viewing the learning of science more as a matter of receiving the aspired university admission, rather than deepening their understanding of science [1]. Empirical studies, however, indicate that infants and little children possess intuitive theories of the world that is surrounding them [2]. And even preschoolers have a feeling for when they are intentionally being taught something, which narrows the range of hypotheses they can consider [2]. Their spontaneous exploratory and pretend play is what helps them learn more effectively, and science educators can build on this. Child development theorists claim that play, as a natural way of learning, is needed for the children's development [3]. It is suggested that encouraging children to play, presenting exceptions and asking for their opinion can lead to scientific thinking and is better than direct instruction [2]. In the following we will take a closer look at discovery learning, a method that is designed to allow learners to broaden their perspective, discover and solve problems, and to retain the knowledge gained. In order for a piece of learning material to be considered suitable for discovery learning, it has to meet one or more of the following criteria [4]:

• accessibility: easily accessible, builds on prior experience, or is embedded in a vivid (not necessarily realistic) situation
• challenge: has a challenging character, or contains internal contradictions or paradoxes
• openness of the initial situation: situation in which suitable approaches must first be found
• openness of the approach: can be worked on with different approaches
• openness of the result: there can be different results
• barrier: cannot be solved by what has been learned previously, new concepts or procedures have to be developed first
• variation: reformulations or variations are allowed
• meaningfulness: exploring and concretizing a general concept, a so-called fundamental idea (e.g. by finding examples and counter-examples, or sharpening definitions of terms)
• authenticity: the way in which learners are approached is realistic and authentic to the development of science

In our approach, we will attempt to meet at least four of these criteria. We want to offer accessibility, meaningfulness, a barrier and authenticity. By fulfilling these, we will create a fruitful environment for all kinds of learners to gain and retain new information [4].

Teaching science to children with disabilities

Teaching science can function as a way to teach and learn valuable life skills. That is why we believe that all people should have access to learning scientific theory and practices. This should include children and teenagers of all backgrounds and abilities. There is sufficient research that students with intellectual disabilities (ID) and/or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are able to learn science content, and more recent studies also show their ability to learn science practices [5]. The acquisition of scientific practices, such as problem solving and asking and answering questions, has the potential of providing students with disabilities with the necessary tools for problem solving in real-life situations in their community, at home, or at school [6]. As a result, their overall quality of life can be increased by the benefits of being taught science content and practices. However, students with higher support needs may have difficulties learning certain science practices due to barriers in communication, executive functioning, comprehension, word recognition, mathematics, and reasoning skills [7]. To conquer these challenges, children with intellectual disabilities and/or autism spectrum disorder need science education that is catered towards their needs. We want to provide the iGEM community with a few examples on how science teaching can work for these individuals. Knight et al. [5] found the following instructional practices to be evidence-based for teaching both science content and the science practices: (a) multiple exemplar training, (b) task analytic instruction, and (c) time delay. To empower more people to teach science to children with ID and/or ASD, we will give a short overview of these three practices in the upcoming paragraphs.

1. Multiple exemplar training [8] is the use of stimuli-samples that are related in some way during teaching. This is done in order to increase the ability of a person to react to new but related stimuli in the same manner. For instance, if you teach someone to recognize limes by showing them various pictures, cartoons, or actual limes and have them say "lime," they'll be more likely to identify and name a new, unfamiliar picture of a lime as "lime." Additionally, other labels can be introduced and connected to the lime, e.g. “green” or “round”. Lastly, when asked for a “green and round fruit” the taught person is most likely to hand you a lime.

2. Task analytic instruction [9] substantially means to break down a skill into its individual components. This can help decrease anxiety around the task and ensure longevity of the skill acquisition. The target skills are shown or explained in terms of their separate components,and, subsequently, each component is taught using a multitude of methods.
3. Time delay [10] is a strategy that falls into the category of response prompting procedures. During these procedures, the teacher initially gives the student assistance after a stimulus was provided, and then continues to give that assistance until the learning individual gives the target response. Upon repetition, the prompts are faded or removed in following presentations of the stimulus. The presentation of the prompts can be simultaneous with the stimulus or delayed. For example, a student may be instructed to spell the word “sky”, and during the first few rounds will be shown the correct spelling, thus only having to copy the right spelling. In the next round, the student may have to try spelling the word without instruction first, and will only be shown the correct spelling after a short time delay.