All kinds of dialogue we had with people working in the field of Synthetic Biology, including scientists and peer students.
Conference
Communication
Interview
Collaboration
Exposition: For Kids & Parents
We held an exhibition in our local museum to attract kids and parents who know little about science. We introduced some new ideas of iGEMers (other teams and us) and used tangible models as well as attractive videos to demonstrate the abstract concepts of SynBio. A comic was also composed to deliver our ideas to kids!
Lecture: For Freshmen
iGEMers can be professorsA course in Nankai University invited us to give a lecture to freshmen! Most of them had never heard about Synthetic Biology and it was our lecture that introduced them to the subject!
Labcourse: For Middle School Students
Before entering a lab, young students might regard science as mysterious and difficult. So we gave a course in our lab to engage them in biological research. (A student even became a member of our team! ) After learning basic operations and knowledge, they were really excited and ready to learn more about biology in high school.
Investigation: For Young Scientists
Since that the karoshi of several young scientists in China shocked the public and that wrong operations caused a serious accident in a lab in Shanghai, we decided to invest the management of some labs in Tianjin. Many master and PhD students spend too much time in the lab. We also found some dangerous operations. After sending our report to the leaders of our school, we were surprised to see that they held a meeting to change this!
Though there are many Chinese scientists devoting themselves to science, the public is still suffering from the lack of knowledge. For most people in China, science is difficult, mysterious and far from daily life. As young students, we hope to be a bridge between 'science' and 'the public', especially the younger generation, which is the future of synthetic biology. Science can definitely attract many students as long as its charm is shown properly to them.
In China, several young scientists have just died from too much work. What's more, a serious accident has caused an explosion and hurt 3 students in a university in Shanghai. As undergraduates, we know that some wrong operations still exist in the laboratories and some master and PhD students are used to spending too much time in the lab. The safety and healthy of young scientists is really important to the future of science. We want to do something to change their working condition.
Our project was named as 'SynFuture'. We want to do something to change the situations in China, and we hope that synthetic biology can have a brighter future in our country. To make it easy to understand, the context, rationale and prior work will be demonstrated in detail in the following sections. We will also give some instructions if you want to do similar work. (P.S. Just contact us if you need our help!)
Biologue:For Self-improvement
Background & Instructions
This part shows all kinds of dialogue we had with people working in the field of Synthetic Biology, including scientists and peer students. This is important for us because we should broaden our horizon before leading others into the field. Also, many people from different institutes helped a lot in the design of our project!
There are many teams inviting others to communicate with them every year. You could find such information on facebook, twitter and wechat, or you can be the host! You can invite others to visit your lab or interview scholars and exchange your ideas about the design of your programs! (A good way to make friends and improve your project☺And remember to help other teams when doing the program!)
Biologue in Conferences
2016.6 Tsinghua University, Beijing. Attended SynbioBeta2016.7.14-15 Peking University, Beijing. Attended Synthetic Biology YoungScholar Forum2016.7 Tianjin University, Tianjin. Attended Synbio Conference and our instructor gave a talk during the meeting. 2016.9 Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou. Attended CCiC. We gave a presentation and showed our poster.
Biologue in Communication
The education of Mainland China and Taiwan is quite different. So sometimes students in Taiwan see things differently. We decided to communicate with students from Taiwan to exchange experience.
A videoconference with Changgeng University, Taiwan, was held in April. We had an online brainstorm to exchange our ideas about the project. We also shared our knowledge with each other and started to see things in a new perspective.
We also communicated with Tianjin University during the Lotus Festival. Luckily, the meeting engaged middle school students and professors. We both presented our project. Having listened the two teams' project presentation, the two professors, (one of which doesn't specialize in synthetic biology) gave their opinions to both teams. Our project, though appearing from scholars to be imperfect, attracted the middle school students. A middle-school student, Annie Kong, asked to be in our team and was accepted!
Biologue in Interview
The differences between Mainland China and Taiwan can generate different ideas on the same thing. For example he ways of thinking are quite different. That's really obvious among scholars! So we went across the Taiwan Straits and interviewed a professor to get new ideas about biology! It was an unforgettable 'biologue' for us!
Working with other teams is an important part to be an iGEMer. We are ready to help other teams with their work and get new friends! See the 'Collaboration' page to get more information.
In construction, we shared Pseudomonas putida and its expression vectors with Tianjin University. We also shared our protocols and helped them to use. As they told us, the strain is a crucial part in their construction -we are really glad to see their device run well with our help!
In interlab study, we exchanged plasmids with Huazhong University of Science and technology. We gave Positive Control Device (I20270 in pSB1C3) and got Device 2 (J23106 in pSB1C3). A win-win collaboration, isn't it?
Exposition: For Kids & Parents
Background & Instructions
Though there are many Chinese scientists devoting themselves to science, the public is still suffering from the lack of knowledge. For most people in China, science is difficult, mysterious and far from daily life. What's worse, there are many rumors making people panic, most of which are obviously wrong. People are credulous for lack of basic knowledge.
This might influence the kids and prevent them from entering the field of science. However, their curiosity can be lit up easily with proper methods. We want lead them to learn the charm of science by introducing the new ideas of iGEMers and introduce them to the new subject, synthetic biology.
Luckily, Tianjin is a prosperous city with rich cultural ethos - that is, citizens are receptive to knowledge. Families love to go to museums, libraries, theaters and so on.
Science Museum is definitely the best place to hold an exhibition to introduce the public to synthetic biology and its special way to analyze and solve problems. We tried to cooperate with Tianjin Museum of Science and Technology and hold the exhibition. The SynFuture Exhibition received general approbation and the museum is ready to start more profound and long-term cooperation. (The staff also promised to provide more equipment such as 3D printers for future iGEM activities!)
If you want to do such work, you have to aim at special population and choose the proper place and time. We want to engage kids and parents so we cooperated with local museum. On a weekend in summer holiday, many people in Tianjin will take their children here and spend a whole day with knowledge. Then you have to consider the characteristics of your target population. In this case, most parents are new to science (they might fail to answer the kids' questions) and kids love to learn new things through cute comics, attractive videos and tangible models. To ensure the knowledge to be taught smoothly, you need to prepare many things. We prepared posters, comics, videos and models. You will see how they worked with us in the next section.
Our Work
Posters & Comic
To make people know what synthetic biology is, we introduced basic conceptions and future applications. We collected materials and wrote articles, and our teachers corrected it for us. We put the articles on the posters and some members stayed beside the poster to explain the articles to the audience. Middle school students and adults were attracted to it and learned a lot from our explanation. (Poster 2 is one of the posters showing the articles)
Now that iGEM is an important part to provide surprising new ideas for synthetic biology, we decided to introduce projects finished by other teams. We learned many previous programs closely and discussed a lot to choose the most representative and attractive ones from home and abroad. Finally we agreed to choose SYSU 2013, TJU 2015, UT Austin 2004 and Utah 2012. The ideas were surprisingly attractive for our audience! All kinds of people, including pupils, middle school students and adults, were curious about the details. (The examples were put on Poster 3)
As for our own project, we thought it might be difficult for kids to understand. So we composed a comic to explain our ideas. Taking their height into account, we put the picture on the lower part of the poster so they can see the detail clearly. (That's what Poster 4 did) Thanks to it, many kids were able to understand our ideas!
To attract the audience, we found some videos to show the knowledge. Our video had a large audience and some of us had to stay beside the projector and answer the questions, helping them to understand the video.
Considering that the abstract concepts are difficult to understand for kids, we brought some tangible models to show "chassis", "parts", "devices", etc. The models also got lots of attention. Some young kids had great fun playing with the models. We pointed out the similarity between the models and 'device', 'parts', 'system' and' chassis', trying to lead the thinking and help them to understand the idea of 'standardizing'.
Fig. 1 Preparations in the museumPoster 1 A welcome poster. Don't Forget it!
Poster 2 One of the articles explaining basic concepts of Synthetic Biology.
The paragraph in pink is questions leading the audience to think and asking for new ideas about SynBio.
Poster 3 The chosen programs to show the surprising ideas of iGEMers.Poster 4 The comic demonstrating our own work to kids.Fig. 2-5 The audience and us.Fig. 6-7 The kids thinking about the knowledge they've just learned.Fig. 8-9 People attracted by the video.Fig. 10-11 Kids and the 'devices' they made!Fig. 12 Kids were attracted by the comic and asked about the details of our program.
Labcourse: For Middle School Students
Background & Instructions
Remember our middle-school member? The little girl, Annie Kong, had an unforgettable summer holiday in our lab. After joining us, she learned more about our project and had a great time learning basic experimental operations. She said she could learn faster while doing experiments and she was inspired by us when she saw us working hard for this goal! This result encouraged us a lot!
Before entering a lab, young students might regard science as mysterious and difficult. This is true among many young students.
Labs, experiments, and scientists...the things shouldn't be mysterious for the public and the young. Science is a way of thinking, while experiment is a way to corroborate our hypothesis. We want to change the stereotype by opening our lab to the public.
Also, for middle school students who were going to enter high school this autumn, the biology course would be new to them. They are more curious than other people. So we had the idea to open our lab to middle school students.
To do such work, you just need to have your own lab or the permission to open it. Prepare a lecture and make sure that there aren't any mistakes. (We asked our teachers to examine it.) The most important thing is to tell the public that science is never mysterious.
Our Work
So we held a course in our lab to introduce more middle school students to biology, especially synthetic biology. We taught basic operations to improve their manipulative ability, and gave a lecture to widen their field of vision. There was also an exam! We asked them to imagine the possibilities of SynBio and solve several easy problems using the operations they've learned.
They told us the examples we introduced were really fascinating and they were more ready to study biology in high school! Two young girls were envious of Annie Kong and ready to be a member in iGEM 2017 when they knew that high school students could also organize a team in the competition.
