UMMS Affiliation
Program in Systems Biology; Program in Molecular Medicine; Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
Publication Date
2019-06-26
Document Type
Article
Disciplines
Educational Technology | Health Communication | Medical Education | Online and Distance Education | Science and Mathematics Education
Abstract
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.
Keywords
Teachers, Antibiotic resistance, Internet, Robotics, Schools, Spectrophotometers, Antibiotics, Science education
Rights and Permissions
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.
DOI of Published Version
10.1371/journal.pbio.3000348
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
Journal/Book/Conference Title
PLoS biology
Related Resources
PubMed ID
31242174
Repository Citation
Dahan O, Dorfman B, Sayin S, Rosener B, Hua T, Yarden A, Mitchell A. (2019). Harnessing robotic automation and web-based technologies to modernize scientific outreach. Open Access Publications by UMMS Authors. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000348. Retrieved from https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/oapubs/3897
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Included in
Educational Technology Commons, Health Communication Commons, Medical Education Commons, Online and Distance Education Commons, Science and Mathematics Education Commons