Team:Lanzhou/Main
Human Practice
Survey
Today, fish provides more than one billion people with most of their daily animal protein. Fish provides nutrients and micronutrients which are essential to the cognitive and physical development of people, especially of children. It is also an important part of a healthy diet. But heavy metals in water have become a threat to both fish and public health. The EPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency) announced that women living on the East and West Coasts had twice as much mercury in their blood (5.9 parts per billion, or ppb) than inland women (2.4 ppb). Levels higher than 3.5 ppb may pose a threat to the woman or fetus.
We designed two kinds of questionnaires including a Chinese questionnaire and an English questionnaire, in order to enlarge the region of our investigation.The Chinese questionnaire and English questionnaire are basically similar.
We totally acquired 544 questionnaire responses. The survey in China was carried out both online and offline. We used an online survey website and collected 526 effective questionnaires. We also got 18 effective paper questionnaires. As to the English questionnaire, we put it on the website and promoted it. Finally, we recycled 12 effective questionnaires from 5 different countries (German, Canada, USA, UK and Netherlands).
Fig.1 We send questionnaires over the world
Table 1 The statistics of questionnaire
| Questions | Answer Choice | Proportion |
|---|---|---|
| 1.What is your gender? |
A.Male B.Female |
49.08% 50.92% |
| 2.What is your age? |
A.＜18 B.18-29 C.30-49 D.≥50 |
2.02% 56.25% 31.62% 10.11% |
| 3.What is your degree? |
A.Middle school or below B.High school C.University D.Bachelor degree or above |
2.76% 10.11% 65.99% 21.14% |
| 4.Do you think water pollution is widespread? |
A.Yes B.No |
97.06% 2.94% |
| 5.Which of the following that you consider to be a water pollutant? |
A.Daily life nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur and so on B.Industrial production of heavy metals C.Agricultural production of organic pesticides D.none |
87.32% 94.85% 87.87% 1.10% |
| 6.What do you think about the impact of water pollution on fish? |
A.Meaningless B.Not so urgent C.Urgent and need to be resolved |
0% 11.76% 88.24% |
| 7.What’s your opinion about the study on the contaminated water and fish? |
A.Important to health B.Important to the environment C.Important to the manufacture D.Meaningless |
95.59% 93.93% 76.47% 0.74% |
| 8.Please choose the ways that you know to get rid of the heavy metals. |
A.Precipitation B.Redox C.Electrolysis D.Dilution E.Adsorption F.Extraction G.Microbiological remediation H.Phytoremediation I.Animal remediation J.I do not know |
65.26% 68.57% 56.25% 31.25% 59.56% 34.19% 56.07% 40.81% 22.43% 9.01% |
| 9.Have you ever heard about the iGEM before this questionnaire? |
A.Yes B.No |
32.17% 67.83% |
| 10.Supposing that a kind of protein (or polypeptide) can bind heavy metals. Then we plan to introduce the gene which encodes the protein (or polypeptide) into the microorganism.So the microorganism can produce the protein (or polypeptide).How is that? |
A.It seems feasible, you can try B.Not feasible C.I don’t know |
66.18% 2.21% 31.62% |
| 11.What do you think of the way to deal with heavy metals by microbes? |
A.Rapid breeding B.Low energy consumption, environmental protection C.Low costs D.See a promising future E.Worry about the biosecurity F.Unstable G.I don’t know |
52.94% 72.61% 49.63% 63.60% 37.87% 17.28% 14.71% |
| 12.If we use the micro-organisms which can remove heavy metals to feed the fish,will you have any concerns? |
A.Yes B.No C.As the case may be |
53.13% 9.38% 37.50% |
| 13.How to reduce the impact of water pollution in your eyes? |
A.Departments’ supervision B.More research and investment C.Corporate social responsibility D.Everyday energy saving E.Other |
95.96% 86.58% 80.33% 72.43% 4.23% |
| 14.Please choose the effective and acceptable ways in your mind to promote reducing water pollution. |
A.Schools, work units，community activities B.Books and newspapers C.TV broadcast D.Network platform E.There is no need F.Other |
88.60% 73.71% 86.40% 88.05% 1.29% 0% |
We drew some interesting conclusions from all of the 544 questionnaires. There are three main conclusions:
1. Water pollution is much serious and of concern: 97.06 % respondents think water pollution is widespread (Fig1) and 88.24% of them care about the impact of water pollution on fish, holding that it is urgent and need to be resolved(Fig2). At the same time, as we asked their opinion about the study on the contaminated water and fish,only 0.74% think it’s meaningless and others all consider it to be important to health, environment and manufacture(Fig3). These results show that it is high time to put efforts on these worrying problems which is the goal and meaning of our project.
As we asked people’s opinion on introducing the gene which encodes the protein (or polypeptide) into the microorganism in order to produce the protein (or polypeptide) that can remove heavy metal. Although 66.18% think it’s feasible and encourage us to have a try(Fig4), 90.62% show their concerns to a certain extent(Fig5). So it’s possible for us to promote our device to the public. Meanwhile, since there are still many people who are unfamiliar with biological treatment, it’simportant for us to spread related knowledge to the public.
3. There are 67.83% of the respondents haven’t heard about iGEM before our questionnaire(Fig6). So we still have much work to do to promote the concepts of iGEM, making public learn more about it.
Public Education
We devised some interesting and educational activities. In May 2016, our team paid a visit to the Lanzhou University Affiliated Elementary School. Considering the significant role of microorganism in iGEM, We made a presentation about microorganism.
In the presentation, we taught kids the basic definition of bacteria and ubiquitous phenomenon concerning with bacteria in our daily life.
Also, we introduced the basic classification of bacteria and the common things related to microorganisms in our daily life, such as fungi, antibiotics, yogurt and so on .
One of our team member was introducing microbes.
Furthermore, we brought some beef-protein mediums and potato-dextrose agar mediums for these students to culture microbes. Children were all excited about it. In this visit, we hope to edify them and evoke their interests about nature and science.
Promotion
Since many people still unfamiliar with synthetic biology, we held an activity together with iGEM team NWPU-China 2016 in order to promote the knowledge of synthetic biology and our project in October 2016. We both made a presentation to introduce our own project and communicated with each other by live video streaming on platform “QQ Zone”. Many students who interested in biology and iGEM attended our lecture and watched the live video of team NWPU-China’s lecture. Also, we made a live video of our lecture for them. In this way, we can interacted with each other by sending comments online.
We were introducing our project.
We were holding the lecture. A team member was making live video for viewers attended the lecture of team NWPU-China.
