Team:Hong Kong HKU/Engagement
Outreach and Public Engagement
The 49th Joint School Science Exhibition
The Joint School Science Exhibition is a local secondary school based science competition in Hong Kong,
held by the Joint School Science Exhibition Preparation Committee (J.S.S.E.P.C.).
Each of the secondary school teams, or project holders (PH), gets to work on a project based on an annual theme.
This year, project holders gather and present their innovativations to the public with the main theme ‘Connection’.
For details, please visit the official website of the JSSE and individual teams.
Our team, The HKU iGEM Team 2016 was delighted to participate in the exhibition as a local University Delegate (UD),
in which we were given opportunities to present our project ideas to the public.
We also had the chance to educate the public about the basics of synthetic biology, which includes fundamental genetics, biomedical concepts and analytical techniques through posters and self-made models.
Below are the photos taken throughout the exhibition period (Aug)
Our team displays posters to enrich public knowledge towards synthetic biology
Our team member Janice was going to demostrate the DNA paperfold to a young girl. She looked interested by the double-helix paperfold of DNA.
Our team member Canaan was explaining the mechanism of DNA strand displacement to a group of secondary school students. The students were focusing on the function of a molecular beacon and dropping notes.
The DNA paperfold material and the model to demostrate stand displacement mechanism and its uses in the field.
It was the last day of JSSE and we received positive feedbacks from the general public and organizer throughout the exhibition. The background is a broad introducing the history of JSSE and we were holding the banner of The University of Hong Kong. From left: Hei Wai Lai, Canaan Yung, Aaron Lam and Kitty Lau.
We distributed introductory booklets to the visitors and DNA double helix folding sheets to the children to enhance our interactivity as well as to expand our target audience.
The booklet is of a bilingual version (in English and Chinese) with contents relating to the iGEM competition, Synthetic Biology with its application, and course, our project.
The online version of the booklet can be found here.
After the exhibition, we obtained the skill of explaining those sometimes overwhelming scientific theories to the general public.
It is vital for scientistic to present the scientific breakthroughs to the society as not everyone understands those sophisticated theories.
In order to get the support for scientific research from the public, introducing science to people who are not familiar with it is essential.
We were glad to have this experience while we are still in undergraduate school.
Meanwhile, we have delivered a sharing session to a local high school, uCCKE, to provide another perspective in synthetic biology to more high school students.
