Adapting and Scaling the Biotinkering Approach through a Community of Practice (CoP) Model

Despite the rapidly advancing landscape of modern biology, the majority of experiences that K-12 learners have with biology are still rooted in traditional procedural and prescriptive approaches. There is a critical need to engage students in a more 21st century approach to biology – one that emphasizes open-ended exploration and creativity as key elements of scientific practice. Over the last five years as part of our previous SEPA award, we have developed an award-winning approach to informal biology education, biotinkering, that authentically engages young people with science as a personally relevant and creative process by supporting learner agency and choice. Our project, Adapting and Scaling the Biotinkering Approach through a Community of Practice (CoP) Model, aims to empower other informal science institutions to participate in and co-author the future of biotinkering with us. To be thoughtful about ensuring that our burgeoning approach can meaningfully engage a new generation of creative problem-solvers and innovators into biology-related STEM fields, our proposed CoP centers on community and co-design. Community relationships at each participating site will be integrated throughout the project to help build a foundation for biotinkering that employs local interests and experiences to drive both engagement and impact. To reach our desired impact, we have the following 3 aims. First, we will establish a thriving Biotinkering Community of Practice to support practitioners in gaining confidence with doing biotinkering in their own contexts. By using a CoP model to do institutional capacity building, we can create lasting impact on the field by building a dispersed network of biotinkering hubs equipped to provide ongoing support and mentorship to other practitioners. Second, all four founding members of our Biotinkering CoP will develop community-focused biotinkering activities, co-designed with local stakeholders, to generate a broader repertoire of experiences for varied audiences and environments. This will result in hands-on biotinkering experiences being implemented around the nation, reaching tens of thousands of young people and providing learners with pathways to develop stronger STEM identities. And third, we will identify strategies and promising practices that can be used by practitioners to adopt biotinkering as an approach centering on community voices. Our new community-focused resources, forged from community perspectives and co-design learnings, will better support the adaptation of biotinkering to different situations and contexts, making it easier to further scale this work to additional informal learning sites and new communities. This approach can generate the types of informal learning experiences that are desperately needed to provide inspirational entry points for the next generation of biotech and biomedical innovators. Lessons learned from the successes and challenges of this project can also offer valuable insights about using CoPs as a model for self-sustaining scaling and knowledge transfer within the informal science learning field.