Teaching Public,Scientific Controversy: Genetically Modified Mosquitoes in the Technical Writing Classroom

Introduction

When communicating scientific information to the public fails to yield actionable results, we instinctively attribute ignorance to the nonscientific public. Instead of analyzing the best methods of communicating complex, technical information to nonscientific experts, we assume that continually repeating the same information will lead to greater public understanding and acceptance. Traditional approaches to public, scientific controversies tend to follow the “deficit model” of scientific communication. This model assumes that when rational citizens do not agree with or accept scientific solutions to problems, they need more, or better, information (Hulme, 2009, pp. 217–218). As Phillip Eubanks (2015) claims, this makes “the Enlightenment-inspired error of believing that if you present credible facts in a logical way, audiences can be counted on to draw the right conclusion” (p. 126). The deficit model encourages a technocratic model of decision-making in which credentialed experts determine what governments or communities should do, effectively overriding the views and opinions of those governments and communities themselves (Fiorino, 1990; Hulme, 2009).

The primary role of technical communicators is to identify communication failures and mediate confusion in public understanding. Longo (2000) identifies technical communication’s social role as controlling “how technical knowledge is made” (p. x) and “transform[ing] knowledge into value” (p. xi). Longo claims that the role of technical communicators exceeds mere translation and becomes one of creation and meaning making. Browning and Cagle (2016) extend Longo’s theories about technical communication’s role into the classroom and reevaluate the goal of technical writing classrooms: “equipping students with workplace skills is not enough. They must also learn to be critical creators and users of TC [technical communication]” (p. 4).

Browning and Cagle (2016) propose a case study that provides “a theoretical perspective which can help draw back the curtain on the ways TC normalizes itself and thus provide students with a critical lens with which to examine their own assumptions about what makes TC effective” (p. 4). By extension, I propose that public, scientific controversies allow students to question assumptions regarding power, discourse communities, and meaning-making while evaluating the role of expertise. With a current federal administration proposing cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency of 31%—a budget proposal that would simultaneously “end programs to lower domestic greenhouse gas emissions, slash diplomatic efforts to slow climate change and cut scientific missions to study the climate” (Associated Press, 2017)—it has become increasingly more important to create classroom environments where students can analyze public understanding and acceptance of various methods of communicating technical, scientific information.

In 2015, I introduced a case study concerning the release of genetically modified mosquitoes (GMO) in the Florida Keys in my technical communication classroom. The class comprised health science majors at the University of South Florida. I have taught this case study for four semesters, making changes based on student feedback and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) actions in the Keys. The mosquito case study explores the intersections between public, scientific discourse and technical communication. The case’s ongoing status allows students to immerse themselves in a timely experience that feels pressing and relevant because of ties to larger sociopolitical issues, such as climate change. In the first unit of the case study, students analyze the role of expertise in the communication breakdown between the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD), the company responsible for creating the GMO mosquito (Oxitec), and the public. The second unit challenges students to begin creating digital, multimodal projects that address the communication failures of parties involved in the release of the mosquitoes. The final unit comprises usability testing of the students’ digital projects.

Similar to both Longo (2000) and Browning and Cagle (2016), my pedagogical objectives include expanding technical communication and technical writing classrooms beyond merely workplace writing and into the critical creation of meaning and value by:

Enhancing students’ understanding of public discourse and its interactions with current public, scientific controversy;

Background: Releasing GMO Mosquitoes in the Florida Keys

The proposed release of a genetically modified mosquito in the Florida Keys is part of a public health initiative to limit the spread of infectious diseases, such as Dengue Fever and Chikungunya. The Aedes aegypti is a nonnative species of mosquito that, due to warming temperatures, has begun migrating into the Southern United States, specifically the Florida Keys. Oxitec’s genetically modified mosquito is intended to serve as a preventative measure against diseases that have spread rapidly in the Caribbean, and to cut costs associated with current mosquito control techniques. In 2012, the annual cost of spraying pesticide treatments for the entirety of the Keys exceeded one million dollars. The mosquito control district estimates that this treatment is only about 50% effective against the invasive, disease-carrying species of mosquito. Oxitec does not plan to profit from the release of the GMO mosquito in the Keys and is primarily concerned with advancing its research in a controlled test area. Further, the chemicals sprayed by FKMCD are not just expensive but also harmful to the residents of the areas sprayed (Keys Mosquito, 2012).

The technology producing the GMO mosquito is derived from a method developed from the Sterile insect technique, or SIT. SIT releases sterilized male insects to compete and mate with female insects. The sterilization process ensures that the female will not produce offspring, limiting the size of the next generation. To use this technique with mosquitoes, however, the male mosquito must undergo a large amount of radiation that leaves it less competitive than normal male mosquitoes. Deviating from SIT, Oxitec insects are created using genetic control rather than radiation. The male mosquitoes are given two genes, a color marker and a self-limiting pest control gene, which causes offspring to die. The modified insects are released to mate with wild, female mosquitoes and they pass on these two genes; 95% of the offspring die before reaching adulthood (“The Science,” n.d.).

The color marker gene is used specifically to help Oxitec control the number of its GMO mosquitoes in a given area. This marker glows fluorescent when exposed to a specific light. Samples are collected in an area to determine how far the GMO mosquitoes have spread and how many mosquitoes in a given area are Oxitec mosquitoes. These examinations help monitor the mosquito population. The self-limiting gene is responsible for inhibiting the proper growth of cells in offspring, which is what causes the majority of the offspring to die before adulthood. According to Oxitec, both genes are nonallergenic and nontoxic to the residents or ecosystem of the Keys.

Overview: Teaching the GMO Mosquito Case

Over the course of approximately 8 weeks, students use the mosquito case study to evaluate an existing complex communication problem by analyzing the rhetorical situation, creating new content to contribute to the ongoing discussion, and usability testing their multimodal projects. The developing nature of the case study has changed the way that I have asked students to engage with the material over the last 2 years. In 2015, the debate over the release of the GMO mosquitoes was in progress. My students could join the ongoing debate and analyze current rhetorical shifts in the presentation of arguments for, and against, the release in real time. Currently, however, the release has been approved by the FDA, and students are presented with a changing rhetorical situation as well as a revolving door of stakeholders.

Like Zoetewey and Staggers (2004) in their presentation of the Air Midwest Case, I define stakeholders as

[I]ndividuals, groups, agencies, or organizations who have an interest in reducing the risk of a similar incident. Thus, our notion of stakeholders includes not only the corporate entities directly involved in the case and their employee groups but also organizations charged with legislating, regulating, or investigating the central stakeholders, as well as segments of the general public. (p. 235)

Unit 1: Expertise

Students must become familiar with information flow between experts and nonexperts in order to proceed as critical evaluators of the mosquito case study. In Unit 1, students specifically identify ways that expertise is affecting communication efforts and begin proposing techniques that might mediate a transfer of knowledge from expert to nonexpert. In World at Risk (2009), Ulrich Beck states that there

is a clear hierarchy of knowledge. It lays down the superiority of the expert vis-à-vis the layperson. This presupposes that knowledge and non-knowing can be distinguished, so that in cases of doubt the monopoly over what constitutes knowledge resides with the experts. (p. 33)

While the underlying theories concerning expertise may not explicitly appear in the classroom, students are asked to consider the role of expertise between the various stakeholders of the case study. The role of expertise in the GMO mosquito case study is most apparent when evaluating the Town Hall meetings that provided the public with a space to directly question a panel of experts. These experts included representatives from the FKMCD, Oxitec, and, eventually, the FDA. I spend class time watching the question and answer portion of the meetings to allow students to observe the exchanges between experts and the public. While students usually agree with the scientists after reading the scientific information supporting the GMO mosquito, watching the public's interaction with the “experts” complicates the issue of the desirability of releasing the GMO mosquito because of the clear divide between expert and nonexpert.

During class, we first discuss the physical layout of the Town Hall meetings. Before watching the recordings of the meetings, we analyze how different stakeholders are positioned around the room. Who sits at the raised podium? What might sitting at the raised podium convey to the public seated on folding chairs below? Space plays a critical role in creating boundaries to expertise and critical, productive discussion. As students observe in the Town Hall meetings, many residents understand that a binary has been created between themselves and the experts, and they are distinctly unenthused about their role in the dialogue. For example, at a 2014 Town Hall meeting in the Keys, a local resident stated, “You’ve got scientists talking to people that don’t have scientific understanding. When you have people who don’t have understanding of a subject, you’re going to have fear” (Catherine, 2014).

Students generally agree that the academic degrees and scientific experiences of the members of the FKMCD and Oxitec panel qualify them to speak about their work on the GMO mosquito. But, students also observe that the method of communicating information to the public largely ignores that the residents and their families live within the mosquito test area. During Town Hall meetings in both 2012 and 2014, residents noted a feeling of “powerlessness.” In 2012, one resident stated that he believed the experts were attempting to

shove this technology down our throats and I for one don’t care about your scientific crap, I don’t care about money you spend. You’re not going to cram something down my throat that I don’t want. I’m no guinea pig. (Keys Mosquito, 2012)

Students are tasked with analyzing these communication breakdowns and submitting a team report that evaluates the interests and perspectives of both sides of the case study. Students must not only identify the differing points of view about the mosquito release, but also offer insight into why those points of view matter to each stakeholder. Thus, students identify a network of actors with differing value systems that may account for possible failures in communication. This report is the first opportunity in the case study for students to work in teams to create a professional document describing and analyzing key stakeholders and positions surrounding the controversy (see Appendix A).

Further, this analysis report challenges students to complicate their preconceived notions of the benefit of the deficit model and technocracy. At this point in the case study, I take the opportunity to provide instruction about the complexities of communicating scientific “truths.” Instructors should keep in mind that, conceptually, students may have trouble considering that academic degrees and scientific fact might not be the only important considerations to a discussion about genetically modified mosquitoes. Bruno Latour (2004a) notes that one of the difficulties in moving beyond technocracy is that the West has become “heirs to an allegory that defines the relations between Science and society: the allegory of the Cave, recounted by Plato in the Republic” (p. 10). The philosopher, and later the scientist, has to free themselves from the Cave—the “social dimension, public life, politics, subjective feelings” (p. 10)—in order to achieve truth:

The Scientist, once equipped with laws not made by human hands that he has just contemplated because he has succeeded in freeing himself from the prison of the social world, can go back into the Cave so as to bring order to it with incontestable findings that will silence the endless chatter of the ignorant mob. (pp. 10–11)

One way that Latour seeks to combat any overreliance on expertise and its dogmatic adherence to matters of fact is to consider that public scientific controversies should not be seen as disagreements over “matters of fact,” but rather disagreements over “matters of concern”:

Reality is not defined by matters of fact. Matters of fact are not all that is given in experience. Matters of fact are only very partial and, I would argue, very polemical, very political renderings of matters of concern and only a subset of what could also be called states of affair. (Latour, 2004b, p. 232)

For Latour, we must move the controversy into the realm of matters of concern. Latour’s “non-modern” model of science holds that beliefs, values, and emotional or affective feeling are an inescapable part of these matters of concern. Traditional political ecology based on an enlightened trust in facts and rational decision-making is fundamentally flawed (Latour, 2004a, 2004b). Like other scholars who recognize what Hulme (2009) calls the “tangled cultural circuits” through which controversy circulates, the activities in Unit 1 ensure that students understand that the debate over GMO mosquitoes is more complex than a simple case of a knowledge deficit, and leave open the possibility that the motives and explanations of the controversy extend beyond the issue of mere scientific facts.

Unit 2: Designing a Website

In Unit 2 of the case study, students move from observers into the role of content-creators. Students use website generators, such as Wix, to create an online space where residents of the Keys could hypothetically learn information about the release of mosquitoes from an unbiased source. This task requires students to understand the rhetorical situation through audience analysis and to find ways to move beyond the current communication errors identified in the Unit 1 analysis report.

Given that many of the students enrolled in this course pursue careers in medical fields, such as physical therapy and hospital administration, it is increasingly important to ask them to consider multimodal communications. Asking students to create multimodal content asks them to consider:

In what ways will choices about design, content, color, and placement affect audience perception of information?

As a multimodal assignment, students’ websites focus heavily on communicating with visuals, a concept that is not new to technical communication (e.g., Brasseur, 2009; Kimball, 2006; Teston, 2012; Williams, 2012;). Teston (2012) argues, for example, that the use of medical imagery during tumor board deliberations work to create “specific, potential meanings” (p. 189). Brasseur’s (2009) discussion of Florence Nightingale’s Rose Diagrams also argues that the “visual abstraction of data” can advance an argument by making difficult, technical information more accessible to the audience (p. 180). Asking students to create visual content on their websites challenges them to consider the meaning-making potential and persuasiveness of imagery that is pivotal to technical communication.

Students are given significant design and content control over their websites. While I require a homepage and a minimum of three additional pages, students can create, design, and place information in any way that they think best. Student control allows them to engage with the audience, and the issue, in ways the instructor has not considered. For example, during the Spring 2017 semester, one student researched the number of Spanish-speaking residents living in the release site. This information led his group to construct content both in Spanish and English to better accommodate their audience. Other groups may choose to make their content interactive through the use of forums and social media. One group created an interactive timeline to help website users learn more about how and why the GMO mosquitoes were created. Using an online program called Tiki-Toki, the timeline was then added to the group’s Wix page to allow users to scroll through the timeline and interact with each event to learn more information. Such creative decisions are not specifically a part of the requirements for this assignment, but reflect student understanding of the audience and a wide range of communication strategies. As James Porter (2009) notes, “Understanding how the range of digital delivery choices influences the production, design, and reception of writing is essential to the rhetorical art of writing in the digital age” (p. 208).

While students create, write, and design content for a website, students do not actually code a website. This means that the class is working within the constraints of a website generator. Prior to beginning this project, I ask students to read Kristin Arola’s “The Design of Web 2.0: The Rise of the Template, the Fall of Design” (2010). Since the purpose of this course is not to teach students how to code websites from scratch, it is important to consider how their skills and the tools available through website creation services might impact their projects. Although talking about social media sites, such as Myspace, Arola (2010) claims that “the form/content separation is problematic in that form is implied as not content …. We are certainly posting information, but this information has become ‘content’ placed in a ‘form’ beyond the user’s control” (p. 6). For Arola, the loss of design is problematic because (a) we lose the ability to control our own online representation and (b) we are no longer considering how design works to make meaning (p. 7). Arola suggests that we combat the loss of design by ensuring that we emphasize design elements in the classroom.

One of the pitfalls with a program like Wix is the inability for students to effectively execute a design from conception to completion. With limited functionality compared with hand coding a website, some students express frustration when customizing their websites. For this reason, I instituted a reflection assignment (see Appendix A) requiring each group to consider the choices they make while designing the website and how these decisions were impacted by using Wix. For example, during the Spring 2017 semester, one of my students wanted to create a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page with questions in drop-down boxes. Her hope was that users could click or scroll over each question and the box would expand to reveal the answer. The student’s reasoning was that she did not want users to feel overwhelmed by an extensive FAQ page, and this design would enable users to interact with only the most relevant content. The student learned that the original concept was not wholly available through her Wix template and, in the end, needed to create an alternative method for displaying the content on the FAQ page. Her revised FAQ page used drop-down boxes by creating separate pages that linked back to the questions posed on the main page. With this layout, users could choose to read more extensive answers to the questions that they find most relevant.

How content is displayed becomes a pivotal component in the case study project. During class, one student noted that good content on a poorly designed website is like an important speech presented by a terrible speaker—the audience will not receive the message if the method of delivery fails. For this reason, major emphasis during this project is placed on the design and display of content. A tricky component is asking students to choose what content should go on their website and how best to present that content in order to engage the audience. As a class, we begin with the FKMCD and Oxitec websites and decide what content could be displayed better and whether the content is effective for the intended audience. FAQ pages are usually a popular choice for student websites. I direct students to research FAQ pages on multiple websites and decide what design choices ensure that the FAQ page is functional and engaging. Other students find creative ways, such as a forum or a blog, to directly navigate questions and concerns from the public in ways that combat some of the issues faced in the town hall meetings.

Unit 3: Usability Testing

In the final unit of the GMO mosquito case study, students conduct usability tests of their websites. Usability tests “are about watching one person at a time try to use something … to do typical tasks so you can detect and fix the things that confuse or frustrate them” (Krug, 2014, p. 113). Most students are familiar with the general concept of usability testing, but are less familiar with the actual process and different types of usability testing. Like our classroom discussions in Units 1 and 2 about generating content based on the needs and interests of the audience, usability testing requires students to take a user-centered approach to their product. Usability testing “emphasizes audience analysis in a most tangible way, not by simply constructing the audience as a fiction but by inviting users to be coauthors and codesigners for the tests they will use” (Breuch, Zachry, & Spinuzzi, 2001, p. 227). Usability testing will help students achieve a better understanding of their audience’s needs and values through direct, participatory interaction.

To introduce the concept of usability testing, my classes watch a short YouTube video called “Usability Testing Fruit” produced by Blink UX (2012). While the video is humorous in nature—researchers ask participants to interact with common fruits, such as a banana—the video introduces students to multiple types of usability testing, such as task-based, think-aloud protocol, eye tracking software, and first-use experience. Ultimately, my students work predominately with task-based testing with 8 to 10 participants from outside of the classroom. Each member of the group is responsible for providing two participants for the study. In many cases, the groups decide to sample a variety of age ranges (18+) in order to better survey the types of adult users present in the Florida Keys. It is important to note that many usability experts, such as Steve Krug (2014), state that usability testing is most effective when it is implemented as a continuous process throughout the project. Due to time constraints in the classroom, however, my students typically perform usability testing near the end of the project once most of their content and design work is completed.

To begin, students work as a team to design their usability tests. The tests consist of a welcome, prequestions, tasks, and postquestions. The welcome portion of the test includes a script with basic information about the website, the website’s purpose, and the background of the case study. The prequestions, which the students are at liberty to design, typically include asking participants about their prior knowledge of GMO mosquitoes and the types of websites that participants frequent. The majority of the test is built around asking participants to complete tasks specific to each group’s website—navigate to a specific page, find content, play a video, contribute to the discussion board, find social media links, and so forth.

Finally, students create a series of postquestions that ask participants to give their general thoughts on the website. This should help students better understand what content is working and what is not. As Krug notes in “Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web and Mobile Usability” (2014), “people often test to decide which color drapes are best, only to learn that they forgot to put windows in the room” (p. 112). Essentially, the postquestions are pivotal in helping students see elements of their website through new eyes and better prepare the final product for their users. Although I do not require students to time their usability tests, I note that the tests will typically last from 30 to 45 minutes. The final component of usability testing is to compile a report of the groups’ findings based on the participants’ feedback. The report may also include the groups’ outline for revising their websites based on the usability tests.

Assessment and Conclusions

As mentioned in my discussion of Unit 2, I ask students to complete an individual assessment of their group’s work after completing the project. The assessment specifically asks students to reflect on the process of creating their website and is based on the reflective assignments used by Jodi Shipka (2011). Shipka asks composition students to reflect on the process of creation through a series of questions that prompt them to discuss the choices that they made while creating. For Shipka, the process of creation is equally important to, if not more important than, the final product. As also mentioned in Unit 2, this reflection assignment allows students to discuss the difficulties and limitations they faced based on technology and their goals for combating these issues. In many cases, this assignment illuminates how well students understand their intended audience.

While this case study assignment has been successful for multiple classes, there are still some pitfalls to working with this technology in the classroom. For example, my first time working with Wix, my students discovered that only one member of their group could be logged into the backend of their website at a time. Before we knew this, students were trying to simultaneously save work and were accidentally losing and erasing content. Despite this issue, students have universally reported favorable results using Wix to create their websites.

The final issue faced with this case study is also a benefit to working with this subject: The GMO mosquito controversy is continuously evolving. For example, when I first started teaching this project, the FDA had not approved the release of the mosquito in the Keys. In 2017, one release of bacteria-infested mosquitoes has taken place in the Keys in order to curb the spread of the invasive species. However, this GMO mosquito is not Oxitec’s product. Instead, a U.S.-based company called MosquitoMate released a test group of 20,000 engineered mosquitoes into the Keys. Unlike Oxitec’s genetically engineered mosquitoes, MosquitoMate uses a bacteria to halt the spread of the Aedes aegypti. The use of a bacteria makes the MosquitoMate product fall under the supervision of the Environmental Protection Agency instead of the FDA, like Oxitec’s product (Thrush & Davenport, 2017). While a proposal intended to clarify which agency should oversee the release of the mosquitoes is under consideration, the addition of the Environmental Protection Agency and MosquitoMate adds another layer of stakeholders and discussion to the ongoing controversy that were not present when I started teaching this case study.

While the ongoing testing of mosquitoes in the Keys often means updating content for this case study, this also presents a unique opportunity for students to engage with a real-life issue as it unfolds. New content is consistently produced about the Oxitec and MosquitoMate products that makes research interesting and engaging for students. For example, the release of the MosquitoMate mosquito happened during a semester that I was teaching this project. Students could look for updates and analyze how the conversation about the GMO mosquito changes in light of MosquitoMate’s trial in the Keys. While sometimes unpredictable, students’ engagement with this project mimics real-life scenarios where students may need to research and update content as a situation unfolds.

To combat the positivist tradition that views Professional and Technical Writing classes as only a “skills”-based course, much like an empirical science, Miller (1979) concludes that technical writing is humanistic work because it requires an understanding of both people, such as an audience, and a specific, technical skill for writing. To succeed in workplace settings, students must know more than how to simply complete workplace documentation in terms of form and structure. Brenton Faber’s “Community Action and Organizational Change: Image, Narrative Identity” (2002) claims that within technical writing, there needs to be a connection between the academic world and the outside community. According to Faber, such a divide can be bridged with “empirical-yet-activist discourse about change and community action” (p. 6). Through the GMO mosquito case study, students are asked to utilize skills needed in a professional workplace and to apply those skills to real-life scenarios that ask them to engage with actual stakeholders and specific rhetorical situations.

Appendix A

Supporting Documents and Links

GMO Mosquitoes Case Study Assignment Sheet