Difference between revisions of "Team:ZJU-China/HP/Silver"

    We have to admit that a similar concept in biology field, transgene, has been doubted since it came into being, and the idea of synthetic biology is heard much less, which make the public much easier to misunderstand it. Apparently, synthetic biology will not “save the world”, but it has great potential to make it a better one. As iGEMers, we hope to contribute to expand the public understanding of synthetic biology, so that to save the potential from the public’s misunderstanding. From another aspect, burying ourselves in the lab is not a sensible idea, so we need the voices outside lab to help us to know what we have been engaged in better. So we organized some activities concerned public engagement to interact with people. To our satisfactory, we got positive feedbacks and were inspired in a way.

    What role should the public play in science? We have been thinking about these since the beginning of our project. In China, people are familiar with the heated debate between the media people and the biologists about transgene. We wonder if synthetic biology will become the next topic? We consider the correct knowledge is the first thing that the public should have, for misunderstanding may lead to fear and rejection. And then they could engage in the process by giving suggestions from their aspect.

    So we attended STEM festival in Suzhou. STEM is a concept of education that advocates students learning like scientists and engineers, which fits well with the aspects of synthetic biology in a way.

    We set up a stall in the exhibition hall with XJTLU. We have a poster to introduce the idea of synthetic biology and our team. What attracted people most was the room escape computer game. It made up a story in our lab, in which you have to find all the clues to decode the cipher in order to escape the room, and the key is the principle of our biological cipher machine. Since room escape is a popular game in China, we think fusing it with some basic knowledge in synthetic biology will make it easier to be taken. And it is welcomed!

    Those who came to the festival were mostly general public who were interested in science. We met a teacher who are fascinated by our idea and synthetic biology, and asked us to talk to his students about these. There were young people attracted by our computer game. However, they were baffled by the new idea it conveyed and eager to learn more about the knowledge behind it. Once curiosity was stimulated, learning efficiency doubles, which fited in exactly with our wishes. We were very pleased to see that we can make a difference.

    We also went to the Wuhan science & technology museum. We set up our showcase 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 showcase can provide a biological aspect of information processing, which enriched the knowledge of the hall.

    Here we played a decryption game with children using candies, which helped them to understand what we have been doing in a funny way. A video which told a story 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 find it is a good way to introduce new idea to the public by integrating it with other funny things. It is obvious to see that the computer game and the interesting video conveyed the idea of synthetic biology do work in the process of public engagement. And it is better to set up our showcase at places that people would like to go at weekends, which allow us to attract more people’s attention, and make them feel that science can be part of their life.
    The improvement of public engagement still have a long way to go, and we believe that our mode can be helpful. The gap between labs and public is not so difficult to bridge, since we find most people are more than willing to engage in it, which is really encouraging.