A summary page for the community outreach activities undertaken by LBEP researchers in 2018. Who you gonna call? Hostbusters! Image 'HostBusters' at the Roslin Institute open day 2018 2018 was a busy year for LBEP community outreach. As part of the Roslin Institute Open day and Midlothian Science Festival, Emily and Joana designed and created a public engagement activity called ‘HostBusters’, which they showcased with help from Bryan, Hanne and Fiona. The aim was to explain how bacteria can adapt and spread to different hosts with the use of a fun board game. In the game the players aim to genetically evolve their bacteria to become host-adapted and infect as many hosts as possible. The day was a success, with over 700 people visiting the Roslin Institute and our activity received great feedback and ideas for improvement. With the help of the Roslin public engagement team and funds from the Wellcome Trust through the HABITAT project, we plan on developing this public engagement activity into a portable and easy-to-access board game and mobile app, which will be used to engage school students and local communities in Edinburgh and Glasgow. More information about public engagement done in the Roslin Institute and the Easter Bush campus: https://www.ed.ac.uk/roslin/community-engagement Image Amy (middle) at Explorathon Explorathon In October, Amy also got involved in the 'Genes in a Bottle' event at Explorathon 2018. This workshop showed school students how to extract their own DNA from their cheek cells, which they could even take home in glass pendants. Link to Explorathon 2018: http://www.explorathon.co.uk/
