Team:AHUT-ZJU-China/Human Practices
AHUT-ZJU-China
Human Practices
We have held several activities, ranging from children to adults, from related factories to scholars in professional fields, from promoting biological knowledge to collaborating on projects.
HP—Creative Art Course for Primary School Students
AHUT-ZJU-China, whose project is about carbon dioxide this year. In 2020, with the increasing impact of the greenhouse effect on the global environment, we have to take how to efficiently deal with greenhouse gas CO2 as priority; because traditional CO2 collection technology is immature for its high energy consumption and low efficiency.
Our project simulates the protein molecule expressed by the mutation of carbonic anhydrase gene Loci, obtains the high thermal stability of carbonic anhydrase (CA) and imports it into Escherichia coli cells to achieve efficient CO2 collection.
In July , 2020, we are at the Yihe Art and Culture House, where we had several creative art classes with the children. During class, we studied biology with them and learned creative art courses. By encouraging children learn the signs of iGEM competition and explaining biological knowledge to them, especially the concepts of genes and synthetic biology, etc. We encouraged children to draw the iGEM logo and use painting to depict genes, synthetic biology, and iGEM competitions in their heart.
After learning the designed course, all the children accomplished their own works with the guidance of iGEM team members.
Our Human Practice—Creative Art Courses in Primary School Students has irreplaceable meanings, which both popularizes the iGEM competition to the public, and introduces the team AHUT-ZJU-China. Meanwhile, this activity better children’s preliminary understanding of their lives and the corresponding disciplines.
We discussed with the AHUT's model airplane team
Currently, our project remains at the laboratory stage before reaching the large-scale application. To seek advanced scene of large-scale applications, we and Anhui University of Technology's model airplane team held a seminar to develop a program of social practice with the guidance given by our instructor group.
We got in touch with a factory in Ma’anshan (Ma’anshan Steel Plant), and a six-rotor drone was provided by the model team.
Kaiyu Wang, majored in embedded programming development, has developed a carbon dioxide detection device that can be mounted on the unmanned aerial vehicle with different gas sensors (The gas sensor can detect the mass of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and other gases in each liter.) and STM32 ARM microcontroller.
We used this drone to carry the detection device into the air and tested it near the end of the factory's exhaust system. It could be seen that the concentration of carbon dioxide near the smoke extraction device was extremely high, 5-20 times greater than the normal value. According to the document "National Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accounting and Reporting and Other 11 Greenhouse Gas Management National Standards Released", the proportion of various costs in the exhaust gas from such a plant's production process is: oxygen: carbon dioxide: sulfur dioxide: vulcanization Hydrogen: Carbon monoxide: Hydrogen chloride: Fluoride: Nitrogen oxides: Other = 14:10:3:3:3:2:3:8:54. We have measured the composition, content and mass percentage of each gas in the factory exhaust gas after averaging as follows:
Table 1 Composition, content and mass percentage of each gas.
| Gas name | Content under standard conditions | Mass percentage |
|---|---|---|
| carbon dioxide | 123.0025 | 10.2599% |
| oxygen | 155.1683 | 12.9429% |
| Sulfur dioxide | 48.5526 | 4.0499% |
| Hydrogen sulfide | 56.8314 | 4.4704% |
| Carbon monoxide | 38.2593 | 3.1913% |
| Hydrogen chloride | 25.9654 | 2.1658% |
| Fluoride | 46.9342 | 3.9149% |
| Nitrogen oxides | 96.2349 | 8.0272% |
| other | 607.9167 | 50.7077% |
| total | 1198.8653 | 100.0000% |
The detected gas content proves the correctness of the literature data, which is simulated in the laboratory according to the proportion of gas in the exhaust gas in the literature. A proportionate gas is manually mixed and passed through water to prepare an unsaturated solution. Depending on the time of access, the amount of carbon dioxide in the solution is continuously tested and used as a source of data for our mathematical modeling, which could be seen in our Mathematical Modeling page in details.
Promote iGEM through couriers and takeout industry
China's current express delivery and takeout industry is particularly prosperous. Our team in September and October, in the case of personal protection, our project and our project concept, made a lot of leaflets and stickers to our express delivery unit in Ma’anshan City. We posted our team's logo, and environmental protection icon on their car, so that while delivering express delivery and takeout, we can let more people understand the concept of our iGEM and the harm of carbon dioxide, and at the same time, let everyone in the city enhance their scientific awareness and develop a sense of environmental protection.
We encourage everyone to develop the habit of environmentally friendly travel. When we sent leaflets to couriers for the first time, many couriers happily accepted the invitation. Although they can not understand very esoteric projects, each of them has a heart to protect the environment. In fact, China's takeout industry has always used electric cars to deliver food, which is a very environmentally friendly concept. When these two ideas of environmental protection are combined with each other, we believe that the environment of Ma’anshan can become better. We also want to slowly expand to the whole country through the publicity of our city, so that more people know the fun of iGEM and the determination to transform the world.
Multi-channel publicity
AHUT-ZJU-China upgraded the original WeChat public number，instagram and Twitter account in July 2020. During the implementation of this year's project, more than ten original articles have been published since the establishment of their team. We actively carry out social practice through such external publicity platform, popularize iGEM contest and introduce our project this year.
After each HP activity, team AHUT-ZJU-China timely summarized, wrote and translated texts it into English, then made it into WeChat manuscript, which was published on the public account of iGEM WeChat, instagram and Twitter account of Anhui University of Technology.
Public account iGEM WeChat of the Anhui University of Technology, involving three main sections of project progress, cooperation, communication, and popular science articles, which can be more available by its readers.
The project progress module publicize the team, experiment process and Logo display. Our articles, a periodic report, is updated on weekly basis. In addition, the team frequently holds meetings, from 2020-02-10 weekly report to 2020-10-10.
What’s more, cooperation and communication are divided into two parts. HP and Collaboration record some activities in HP, such as primary school students' creative class activities, visits to Huvernon environmental protection technology co, LTD, etc. Collaboration introduces our interaction with iGEM teams in other universities.
The popular science article module focuses on the popular science of synthetic biology. It mainly propagates the International genetic engineering Competition (iGEM) through words and pictures, which has been held by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) annually since 2005. iGEM is the highest international academic competition in the field of Synthetic Biology. And the knowledge is related to our team's experiment.
The public account of iGEM WeChat of Anhui University of Technology is principally for schools and the society. WeChat users can have access to the information on iGEM, so as to improve the popularity of the international genetic engineering competition and create the image of the iGEM team of Anhui University of Technology.
Publicity activities in kindergarten
During the summer vacation, after we had done our own protective work, AHUT-ZJU-China went to the kindergarten to tell the children and teachers about COVID-19 's seriousness and some biological knowledge. Let the children and teachers here understand what the virus is, how to prevent and control the virus, and what prevention and control measures should be taken in daily life. Then we told the kids about the carbon dioxide capture we made in iGEM this year. The impact of carbon dioxide can not be ignored, we told children that if the global temperature rises, then some low-altitude areas may be submerged, some animals will lose their homes. Although we did not tell the children what is very difficult. But it must be great for children to have a sense of protecting the environment and protecting the health of themselves and others.
Publicity activities in the university
In recent years, the global air quality has declined relatively and the pollution is severe, especially carbon dioxide has a great impact on the air quality. In order to advocate understanding the harm of carbon dioxide to the air, so as to arouse people’s awareness of the importance of protecting the environment, members of the iGEM team of Anhui University of Technology carried out promotion activities about relevant knowledge in their university.
The publicity activities were carried out through the offline meetings and seminars in the teaching building of Anhui University of Technology, which aims to publicize and popularize biology-related knowledge among college students and arouse people’s awareness of the importance of protecting the environment. The following is the specific content and process of one of the activities: In September 2020, our team launched a publicity campaign with the theme of "Environmental pollution caused by greenhouse Gas emissions such as carbon dioxide" in Anhui University of Technology. On that day, the group arrived at the meeting site in advance to arrange and rehearse. At the meeting, the team leader of the iGEM spent the first hour popularizing the background knowledge for the audience: First of all, we start with the Greenhouse Effect directly caused by carbon dioxide. Greenhouse gases come from carbon dioxide, and the sun transfers energy to the ground through heat transfer, warming the earth and nurturing everything. After the surface is heated, it will also produce thermal radiation and transfer heat to the outside. Large-scale carbon dioxide gas blocks this radiation, and the surface temperature will be maintained at a relatively stable level. This is called the Greenhouse Effect. How serious is the impact of the Greenhouse Effect? Let’s take one country as an example. Under the dual influence of the Greenhouse Effect and periodic high tide, most of Tuvalu, a country in the western Pacific Ocean, is about to be flooded, including the Capital Airport and some residential areas and offices. The team then went on to use vivid examples and impassioned speeches to fully illustrate a series of catastrophic effects caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide. The wonderful speech made the audience deeply realize the importance of protecting the environment, saving energy and reducing emissions. After the meeting, the audience representatives expressed their heartfelt feelings, which indicated that the content of the speech really enhanced the audience’s awareness of environmental protection. The activity was a great success, with publicity covering the entire university campus and even outside campus.
Do a questionnaire survey.
In September, we conducted a questionnaire survey on the effect of carbon dioxide on global warming on several university campuses. The questionnaire included: (1) do you think carbon dioxide is the main cause of global warming? (2) besides carbon dioxide, can you list other gases that pollute the air? 3. Will carbon dioxide cause less habitat for animals?
About 60% of the students' answers are close to the correct answer, but all we know is that carbon dioxide causes global warming.
This is what makes us very happy. We all have a strong sense of protecting the environment.
After the questionnaire survey, we told them some correct answers to many environmental questions. Some answers even hep them to answer questions that have plagued them for a long time.
Interview with Dr. Wang Shuangshou
When we wanted to go to the factory to experience our CA, and had trouble finding out how to measure the concentration of carbon dioxide in the gas, Dr. Wang shuangshou came to help us. Dr. Wang Shuangshou received his Ph.D. from Nanjing University in 2015, with rich analytical chemistry knowledge and experimental experience. He also has strong interest in biology and analytical chemistry.
What we do
Most gases are homogeneous mixtures with complex compositions. At the same time, the concentration of carbon dioxide in water is very low and unstable and something goes wrong. So in August,we do not know how to measure the concentration of carbon dioxide in the gas. We want to find a more accurate way to measure the concentration of carbon dioxide in the gas. When we consulted with Dr. Wang shuangshou on this issue, he suggested that we use infrared spectrum to conduct quantitative analysis of gas, and gave us an example of the carbon dioxide infrared probe in cell room, which can accurately measure the concentration of carbon dioxide in gas.
What we got?
For carbon dioxide under infrared light, the theoretical four absorption peaks are infrared inactive vibration and degeneracy, because the change value of dipole moment is equal to zero. In fact, there are only two fundamental frequency peaks 2350 cm-1 and 666 cm-1 in the spectrum so we can use infrared which can make carbon dioxide concentration measure more accurately.
Visit Ma’anshan Iron and Steel Plant
We visited the local steel plant in Maanshan. When our team was considering the industrialization process of the project industrialization, we found that the data on the Internet had not been updated for a long time. Since improving the current situation and reducing pollution are our main goals, we decided to visit an actual factory to see if our plan worked. The reason why we choose to visit this Maanshan Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. is that this factory produces a lot of harmful exhaust gas every day.
In September, after repeated inquiries, we got in touch with Maanshan Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., and we interviewed a researcher in the factory. After communicating with relevant researchers, it is learned that the waste gas from this factory is mainly harmful gases such as sulfides.
At the same time, the factory's hourly emissions are huge. The researchers told me that they still use factory sintering flue gas desulfurization, which is time-consuming and expensive, but does the least harm to the environment. We find that China, as a country with rapid industrialization, can take environmental protection as an important indicator while developing economy and production, which reflects that the country attaches great importance to the ecological environment and the concept of sustainable development. This means that our project has taken into account the needs of society. We hope that our research can focus on specific problems so that the product can deal with it. The person in charge of the factory is also very enthusiastic and gives meticulous feedback. We will continue to cooperate further.
Hold a Maxiang-Road Promotion
Maxiang-Road is one of the main roads in Anhui University of Technology, which is always of high traffic of students from different disciplines. This is a good place not only for publicizing iGEM and our project, but also for popularizing synthetic biology in students.
If some students and professors show an interest in promotion, they might give us some advice we would never have thought of, which could unexpectedly benefit our program.
Our team members delivered presentations and explained more details about iGEM and our project on Maxiang-Road. Our team members explained the harm that CO2 will bring to the earth's environment, and told you that you need to be aware of environmental protection all the time. In addition, we introduced questions from students and professors about our program and had a short talk with them about their areas of interest.
Visit with the steel factory again
Why we do?
We found that China, as a country with rapid development in industrialization, can consider environmental protection as an important indicator while developing its economy and production, which reflected the country's high attention to the ecological environment and the concept of sustainable development. This means that we have considered the need of the society. We hope that our research can focus on the specific problem and make the product can deal with it. And the feedback given by the factory can also guide our project in a clear way.
What we do?
The factory is located in a small village near Ma'anshan, which is not far away from AHUT. We went to this factory the second time in August. After hearing about our iGEM project, the researchers expressed great interest in our experiment and invited us to conduct a series of tests in their laboratory as it seeks to obtain valid data to test the feasibility of the experiment. The end result was also surprising. Our experiment has some advantages over the original method in many indexes. In communication with staff, we explained our ideas about using CA2. The factory technical personnel thought the idea was good, and the method could reduce environmental pollution, but he reminded us the complexity of the actual production process and the problem of the high cost. I got to know that researchers need to think about many actual problems when they want to use a certain method in manufacturing, which is very different from the production process in the lab. All production and management should serve for the sustainable development of the human ecological environment, rather than simply pursue the maximization of profits of the enterprises.
We designed a simulation model for the factory that could test the activity of the enzyme in the laboratory. Using the waste gas composition of the factory collected by us to simulate the factory environment and test the ability of the enzyme, the experimental results are good.
What we got?
During the tour in the factory, we saw different machines. Then we realized how hard it was to make an industrialized process able to be applied to the practical market. To achieve our goal, we still need to improve the efficiency and conduct multiple experiments to test the validity. We feel more confident in our project. Also, we realized how hard it is to change the process. We need to combine our results with the current situation to make it useful for the actual practice.
Cherish our only home on earth
Nowadays, the beautiful sky gradually disappears. We want to appeal to the students realize the importance of the beautiful sky and take pictures to record the world.
Through the WeChat official account we released an activity about "Shoot the blue sky and white clouds around us " and got a warm response.
When we sighing for the loss of beautiful environment, which will return no more, let us reflect that flue gas will come. But our environment is belong to everyone. We can arouse people one by one to make our environment more beautiful.
Monthly meeting
Why we do?
Each team's project in iGEM is not perfect at the start. In order to make the project perfect and make the team members cooperate with each other more and more smoothly, each team holds the team meeting to discuss again and again. So it is important for us to hold meetings to make some discussions. The members of the iGEM in our college held a conference every week to discuss how to solve our current problems and how to do next. Our members of iGEM keep the habit of discussing at meetings once a month since December 15.
Fig.15. Group photo after experiment discussion
February
the conference included that:
Division of labor at that time
Members of the experimental group introduced the carbon dioxide capture project
Plan for the next step
Through the discussion at this meeting, our division of labor has become more rational and the efficiency of work among members has been fully improved and at the same time, our team members got a preliminary understanding of the project that we are going to carry out.
March
The conference included:
The basic knowledge of biological brick
The main function of carbonic anhydrase in our project
Arrangement of mission about HP and Collaboration
Through this meeting, we knew that it was helpful for the experimental group to design and transform the biobricks in the later stage. And some other works were arranged, so that we can be prepared for the following assignments.
April
The conference included that：
The experimental group summarized the basic professional knowledge related to the competition.
We initially summarized the schemes of HP and collaboration. The experimental group needs to understand the basic knowledge of genetic engineering.
Interpretation of the standards of the Medal
May
The conference included that：
The group of the HP and Collaboration should continue to work on related activities.
We plan to go to primary school to teach students and answer their questions.
We had a discussion with our teacher about the project.
Through the discussion in this meeting, we asked the experimental group to conduct a detailed research on Interlab in the next stage. Meanwhile, the members of the group of HP and collabarbitration need to investigate the previous Collaboration projects and make a summary.
Fig.16. Meeting collection
June
Microbiological experiment
The Interlab research of the experimental group was completed and the instructor should plan for the following projects.
The members of the group of HP and Collaboration had completed the research of the collaboration.
Through the discussion in this meeting, we planned to continue to improve the website design of the wiki in the next stage and the website design needs to conform to the theme of this year. Meanwhile, the experimental group should pay attention to collecting some relevant experimental pictures used on the wiki when conducting experiments.
July
The conference included:
Design our laboratory
The Logo production is completed by the group of art layout.
Through this meeting, we planned to meet the requirements of the iGEM gold award for the next phase of the experimental.Two different wiki designs should be prepared for the web page team. Through cooperating, our team members had a high degree of tacit understanding, and the atmosphere of the discussion became more and more lively.
August
The conference included:
Improve the collaboration with ZJU
Improve the logo
Through this meeting, two different logo designs should be prepared for the webpage team.
September
The conference included:
The experimental group planed to complete our part.
We revoted on the wiki design.
Through this meeting, we planed to meet the requirements of iGEM gold award for the next phase of the experiment.
October
The conference included:
Review our experiment text
Review our human process text
Review our website
Through this meeting, we planed to recheck our experiments, logo, and webpages.
What we got?
Our iGEM team of Anhui University of Technology discussed and solved various problems in the progress of our project through conferences. And our final project has been improved; the members have more and more trust in each other. The conference is still going on, and our story is still going on. We believe that the iGEM team will be able to achieve success in this year's competition.
