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Welcome to the Building with Biology project! The evaluation letter contained here explains both the required and optional reporting of your Building with Biology event, and includes links to further online resources and contact information for any questions you might...

This 7-minute video was developed as part of the Building with Biology project and is designed to help create conversations in museums among scientists and public audiences about the emerging field of synthetic biology and its societal implications.

This is a detailed guide for planning and promoting your Building with Biology event. The guide covers each step of preparing for your event, recruiting and training volunteers and scientist partners, facilitating conversations during the event, and evaluating the event...

Hear about the resources the Building with Biology evaluation team has created to understand what public visitors at 2016 Building with Biology events learn from their experiences and value about their participation. This webinar is required for sites that have...

This is a set of printable materials for your Building with Biology events. These materials invite visitors to imagine all the ways that new technologies and techniques of synthetic biology could affect their lives, now and in the future. Visitors...

In 2016, 200 Building with Biology kits were distributed to museums and informal science education organizations around the country. Kit recipients hosted events with hands-on activities and forum programs that fostered public engagement with science about synthetic biology. This online...

This is a hands-on activity for Building with Biology, in which visitors explore the engineering aspect of synthetic biology by solving challenges through building a model cell with standardized genetic parts. Many genetic components can be used as part of...

The Multi-Site Public Engagement with Science - Synthetic Biology (MSPES) project, publicly referred to as Building with Biology, was a three year project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that promoted public engagement with science (PES) - a model...

In this Building with Biology activity, visitors explore the potential for engineered viruses to deliver beneficial, targeted genetic information to sites throughout the body, and discuss their hopes and concerns regarding this technology. Visitors create a model of the technology...

During this discussion, presenters provide a general introduction to the fast-growing field of biological engineering and describe a NSF-funded project that brings together professionals from the scientific community and informal science educators to create conversations between synthetic biology (or a...

This is a hands-on Building with Biology activity. Visitors learn about the ways synthetic biologists can solve problems through creativity and the engineering process. Visitors are first challenged to design a superhero (by attaching cut-out features to a paper template,...

This welcome letter will introduce you to the Building with Biology kit, walking you through the contents of the physical and digital kits, as well as the basics of museum-scientist collaborations and the reporting/evaluation requirements for recipients of physical kits....

This is a collection of colorful, printable reference sheets on the basics of synthetic biology and related fields of study. Using illustrations and simple language, the sheets describe the essentials of genes and DNA, traditional agricultural breeding, genetic engineering, and...

This guide is designed to help staff at informal science education organizations and others who are interested to develop, implement, and evaluate activities and events that incorporate the multi-directional dialogue and mutual learning at the heart of public engagement with...

These materials will help prepare you, your staff, and your event volunteers for a successful and engaging Building with Biology event. Included are the event orientation presentation (with notes) and the tips for conversations reference sheet.

This online workshop covers what a forum is and how hosting a forum might benefit your Building with Biology event and institution - it's a great way to engage adult audiences! We'll discuss each of the two forum topics that...

Here is a selection of NISE Net Building with Biology press photos! Please use these images for marketing Building with Biology events, and in creating other related materials. These photos are free for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0...

These "passports" can be used at your Building with Biology event to help visitors keep track of everything they've done there—they can collect stamps to mark when they've talked to a scientist, asked a question about synthetic biology, shared an...

These colorful, printable posters introduce visitors to the principles of synthetic biology. One shows synthetic biologists at work, and the other features the student teams at the 2014 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) synthetic biology competition.

"Bio Bistro" is a card-based personal choice activity, in which visitors decide what current and future synthetic biology-based food products they would, would not, or might eat. They share their opinions on why they made each choice, and discuss what...

This article was originally published in the March/April 2019 issue of Dimensions magazine, the bimonthly publication of the Association of Science-Technology Centers. The NISE Network is a national community of informal educators and scientists dedicated to supporting STEM learning across...

To help support Summer 2016 Building with Biology event host sites, we're offering several upcoming professional development opportunities for host site staff, volunteers, and scientists. Online workshops will provide an overview on public forums, the contents in the Building with...

This online worksohp will prepare participants to collect evaluation data from participants of the Building with Biology forums call Should We Engineer the Mosquito? and Editing the Genome: Now We Can. Should We? All sites receiving a forum stipend must...

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...

This is a hands-on activity in which visitors learn about the fundamental component of biology and synthetic engineering: DNA. In the activity, visitors will extract visible DNA from wheat germ, and create necklaces to display their own sample of wheat...