Tinkering with the temperature of the planet earth and designing synthetic organism: Engaging high school age students in participatory decision making about science and society

Background/Question/Methods:

The Science, Policy and Citizenship project introduced high school age students to the complexities of decision-making at the intersection of science, technology and public policy by asking them to develop policy positions in response to questions such as: (i) Should the federal government undertake a geoengineering research program, and if so, how should it be organized, what level of funding would be appropriate, and what should be its goals?; and (ii) How much time do we have to deliberate over the definition of synthetic biology in order to determine what to do in terms of funding, regulation, and monitoring; and how might your response change if there were (a) major scientific breakthrough like creation of synthetic life, (b) major human casualties like from an accidental release of a synthetic virus, or (c) major global economic crisis like sustained spike in price of crude oil?

Students at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, VA were asked to develop their policy recommendations on geoengineering and synthetic biology after going through a deliberative process known as participatory technology assessment.  Participating students were provided background materials, asked to reflect individually on social, ethical and legal concerns about geoengineering (fall 2010) and synthetic biology (spring 2011) and divided into small groups  to deliberate these concerns. Conducted over four weeks, the deliberation had three sequential components: exploratory deliberation, expert deliberation and consensus deliberation. The exploratory and consensus deliberations were hour and half face-to-face discussions within each group.  The expert deliberation was a week-long on-line discussion among technical and policy experts and students in all groups.  Each group presented their consensus opinions and testified to an expert panel simulating a congressional committee (geoengineering) or an inter-agency panel (synthetic biology).

Results/Conclusions:

By engaging with experts in both the technical and policy aspects of emerging issues facing Americans, the students learned about the complexities of bringing science into the policy realm. By deliberating with each other and with decision makers as ordinary citizens, they also gained hands on experience in the political processes our society uses to deal with these complexities. Having students think about global stewardship, corporate interests, environmentalism, the economic impact of regulation and international cooperation under the heading of science and technology helped them recognize the complicated aspect of many science-meets-policy issues such as climate change, nuclear proliferation and food security.