Team:ZJU-China/Engagement

Attribution

Motivation

Communication between the scientific community and the public has been a problem. Though synthetic biology won’t “save the world”, we do not want to have its potential wasted by the misunderstanding of the public. So we organized some educational activities for the public to bridge the gap. And we also get our own perception adjusted according to their feedback.

But as for the current solution for this problem, there are not many typical modes that can be built upon. We realized the hardness caused by this, and would like to establish a new mode for better public engagement.

A stall for education

We consider that it is easier for people to understand a new idea if it is presented in a more familiar scene for them. So we integrated our activities into local activities that people choose to participate in the weekends. We want to convey a concept that “science can be a part of their life, and their engagement do matters”.
In that way, we need to prepare some funny things to attract people’s attention. Various creative educational tools are designed by team members. We think about using a stall that integrates these tools to introduce synthetic biology and our project to the public. The stalls were put up in different places, such as the exhibition hall of STEM festival and the information hall of a science & technology museum. And we adjusted the types of the tools and the way to communicate with people in the process of activities conducting.

Educational tools

Puzzle game with candies

Applicable age range: 5-15

Video about synthetic biology for kids

Applicable age range: 5-15

Kids like stories, and it always a good way to convey some basic concept in stories. So we made a video about synthetic biology, in which a story of a bacterium changing itself by means of synthetic biology was told. It conceals some proper nouns, and focus on sparking new curiosity of the kids.

Room escape game

Applicable age range: 15-35

Speech filled with proper nouns will make people unwilling to recept the information. But game can always fascinates people. Have you ever feel learning motivation is extremely high during the game time?
Taking that phenomenon into consideration, we think about designing a room escape computer game for the public. The background of the game is set in the lab, you are unable to escape the room until you collect all the clues. In order to get the clues, you have to know basic knowledge of synthetic biology and our project. If not, it is easy to get the wrong clue, and fail the game! The player will find it difficult at first, and be eager to know the knowledge about synthetic biology behind the game, which meets our original intention.

Mechanical cipher machine

Applicable age range: 15 and above

In consideration of biosafety, it is not possible to bring our biological cipher machine outside the lab. However, we can change the way to present it! Then a mechanical cipher machine came out. It used the same principle of our biological enigma machine, but it is much faster, which enables it to show how our biological enigma machine works to the public.

Software Enigma

Applicable age range: 15 and above

Since the mechanical cipher machine is not convenient when it comes to vast input. We designed a software enigma, which has a clear user interface and easy to manipulate. It can be used to decipher the codes behind the postcards we designed(see below).

Postcards with cryptology themes

Applicable age range: All ages

We designed two kinds of postcards to attract people’s attention, and expand their knowledge of cryptology and our project. The first kind has our project name on the front, and the codes which can be deciphered with the help of our software Enigma. And the second kind has the some illustration of the history of cryptology on the front, and the codes which can be deciphered using historical ways(such as Caesar cipher).

Activities & Experience sharing

So how did we integrated those tools into public engagement activities? We organized some public engagement activities to test the effect of it in the real world. We attended STEM festival in Suzhou. We set up our stall in the exhibition hall with XJTLU. We have a poster to introduce the idea of synthetic biology and our team. In that case, we used the room escape computer game. People are attracted by it and asked us about the knowledge behind the game, then we introduced some basic knowledge about synthetic biology to them. Then, they understood the game better and “escape the room” easily.

We also went to the Wuhan science & technology museum. We set up our stall in the information exhibition hall, which is a hall set up for people to learn more about how information processes. And this is exactly the problem we are dealing with! And our stall can provide a biological aspect of information processing, which enriched the knowledge of the hall. Here we played the puzzle game with children using candies, which helped them to understand what we have been doing in a funny way. The video based on synthetic biology was also played beside the game area. Many kids were attracted by it and asked us to explain the details of it.

We attended a national famous skill sharing activity in China, Oneyouth Talk. We presented our work and introduced synthetic biology to the public. And after the presentation was over, many people talked to us, and gave some valuable feedbacks. There was also a fair in the location of the Talk for people to sell some interesting made by themselves. We sold our postcards with codes there, using the software to help them to decode the information, the mechanical cipher machine to let them try the process of encryption and decryption, which helped a lot to explain our project.

Our mode was tested from the east to west China. The educational tools were welcome, and do help us to explain synthetic biology and our project in an effective and interesting way. They were proved to be successful.

Dialogue& our reflection

These feedbacks are the epitome of wonder and concern about synthetic biology. The old rejected things that may change their life instinctively, and were very serious about biosafety. The teacher welcomed the new idea of synthetic biology, and want to help the students to expand their horizon. The high school student were curious about what synthetic biology can do, and want to know more about the details. And the kids’ curiosity for synthetic biology was sparked. And for the youth, they cared more about the project itself, and were curious about synthetic biology.

We carefully explained the safety problem synthetic biology concerned to the old, and realized it is the first problem that synthetic biology should settled down, in order to apply it to reality. However, some problems of biosafety are easy to settle, while others are hard to make it clear. There is still many attention and effort to be paid. And we were very pleased that the tools can be useful for them to understand it better.

We explained the details to the youth who asked us problem about the project. And they encouraged us a lot, telling us that the project was very impressive and thanks us for bringing the idea of synthetic biology. We were aware that the youth cared less about the application than others, and they value the idea and creativeness. But we still can’t ignore the problems that synthetic biology meet when it comes to apply it to the real world, which are also the problems that we were asked. We used to think that an innovative design is enough, and we can extract the certain circuit of it for future application. But now we think the application can’t always be delayed. It is not only the problem that the public concerned most, but also the motivation for synthetic biologists.

Contact Us
Room 413,Biology lab center, Zijingang Campus
Zhejiang University, YuHangTang Road NO.866
Hangzhou, China

iGEM ZJU-China 2016 Team
igem_zjuchina_2016@outlook.com