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Building with Biology: Tech Tokens

In this activity, learners consider the potential advantages and disadvantages of various areas of synthetic biology research, before investing in them with "tech tokens."

DESCRIPTION

In this Building with Biology activity, visitors consider the potential advantages and disadvantages of various areas of synthetic biology research, before investing in them with "tech tokens." Then, visitors assume the role of a different character, and consider how that person's synthetic biology priorities and concerns might differ from his or her own. By talking through their decisions, and those of other visitors, players start to see how each person's values determine what technologies are developed and adopted.

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  • Two learners place tokens on what technology card they value more
  • Learners selecting and reading character cards to understand what technologies might be more important to the character
  • Hands sorting tokens to signify which technology is most important to them
  • Two learners place tokens on what technology card they value more
  • Learners selecting and reading character cards to understand what technologies might be more important to the character
  • Hands sorting tokens to signify which technology is most important to them

DESCRIPTION

In this Building with Biology activity, visitors consider the potential advantages and disadvantages of various areas of synthetic biology research, before investing in them with "tech tokens." Then, visitors assume the role of a different character, and consider how that person's synthetic biology priorities and concerns might differ from his or her own. By talking through their decisions, and those of other visitors, players start to see how each person's values determine what technologies are developed and adopted.

JUMP TO BROWSE RELATED RESOURCES

TRAINING VIDEOS

OBJECTIVES

BIG IDEA

Synthetic biology is interconnected with society.

LEARNING GOALS

  • Technologies and society are interconnected.

  • People’s values determine which technologies are developed and used.

  • Synthetic biology benefits from many voices.

Credits

YEAR CREATED
2016
OWNING INSTITUTION

Science Museum of Minnesota and Museum of Science

FUNDING

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number DRL 1421179.  Any opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

PERMISSIONS

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US).
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DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

NISE Network products are developed through an iterative collaborative process that includes scientific review, peer review, and visitor evaluation in accordance with an inclusive audiences approach. Products are designed to be easily edited and adapted for different audiences under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license. To learn more, visit our Development Process page.