Team:Tianjin/Engagement
Our Competence for Engagement Prize
Based on the definition of public engagement, which the myriad of ways in which the activity and benefits of higher education and research can be shared with the public, we team Tianjin iGEM 2016 conducted the mission of scattering the concepts of PET degradation, synthetic biology and iGEM competition to ordinary people.
Education
Primary School
On the afternoon of September 23, 2016, we went to Baitangkou primary school to make a presentation, aiming to let more pupils learn about the conception of synthetic biology and arouse the consciousness of fighting against the plastic pollution and protecting our earth.
Middle School
On Sep.18th, we departed for Dagang No.1 Middle School. We gave a lecture to students about iGEM and our project this year. They thought that knowledge in books is traditional and out of date, iGEM could make them get in touch with the cutting-edge knowledge of synthetic biology. Finally we invited them to visit our laboratory and conduct some experiments.
University
On September 27th, five members of our team went to TUST and gave a speech about what is synthetic biology and how to set up a iGEM team. Since the term of iGEM competition is almost a band new term for them, they showed great interests and talked with us enthusiastically. They claimed that they would recruit members this semester and register for a team next year.
Engagement Ⅰ：Debate
To make the ordinary students engaged in iGEM, we team Tianjin together with Beiyang Environment-Protecting Association held a debate competition discussing ethical issues provoked by the application of synthetic biology, aiming to publicize the conception of synthetic biology and arouse attention to biotechnology.
The debate began at 20 p.m., Sep.28th and lasted for an hour. The topic was whether it is safe to curb environmental pollution with artificial modified bacterium. Our team members were invited as special guests to watch this intense competition. During the interval, we gave out iGEM handbooks and souvenirs to audience. After that, we made a brief introduction of synthetic biology and our project.
Generally speaking, the debate was very successful. We were delighted to collaborate with Beiyang Environment-Protecting Association. It was glad to see that everyone participating in the game were intrigued by this subject. The successful hosting of the debate epitomized our great publicity of synthetic biology.
Debater
Hostess
FreeDebating
Engagement Ⅱ：TEDA Eco Centre
Engagement Ⅲ ：Social Media
We team Tianjin contacted Team Pasteur, Team Pittsburgh, Team Valencia UPV, Team Virginia and Team NTU about the collaboration in July. Then we established and led a survey union with the support of them. We asked each team submit two or three questions about their own project and one question about synthetic biology or iGEM, and integrated the questions to the final version questionnaire.
Then, we posted it on twitter and facebook, many iGEMers participated in it and many iGEM teams reposted it on their homepage. We are very delighted to see their enthusiasm which encourages us a lot!
