Excellence in Another Area
In this year's iGEM, the concept of "excellence in another area" was proposed. This is a revelation for our work. iGEMers must not only make their own achievements in the scientific field, but also think about how to influence the world in many ways. We think this is a new requirement for human practical work.
Science for All Alliance
Because of the impact of the COVID-19, many teams have begun to explore new models of popular science publicity and education. Looking at the popular science publicity work of many excellent teams, they are all very good, but we found a problem: the popular science publicity work of many excellent teams has not become a "series" but a "brand". At the same time, many teams have been doing lectures for children, high school students, undergraduates and other popular science activities. Although they are necessary and very meaningful, they lack "explosiveness" .As for synthetic biology, a discipline that is relatively "inconspicuous" in the public eye, if it is really to be known to the public, there should be enough big news. At the same time, according to the research report and handbook of team BIT and team SCUT-China, it can be known that in the current science popularization work, many teams are not doing well or even missing some links.
Team BIT`s research report：https://2020.igem.org/Team:BIT/Education
SCUT_China`s wiki： https://2020.igem.org/Team:SCUT_China/Education
Team BIT, SCUT-China, and UESTC-Software realized these problems after careful research and several conference calls, and decided to join together to make changes. Therefore, the three teams jointly organized and established the “Science for All Alliance”. In 2020, iGEM Giant Jamboree issued a call for more iGEMers to join us!
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The original intention of the Science for All Alliance was to help each team better conduct popular science publicity activities. The Science for All Alliance hopes to form a community with popular science activities as the main content, and provide a platform to provide more opportunities and inspiration for all teams.
We temporarily choose this logo as the LOGO of Science for All Alliance. The LOGO adopts the traditional Chinese ink and wash style, and uses the Chinese character "普" as the main element. The word "普" means "universal", which means that everyone has the opportunity to be exposed. This coincides with the theme of our Science for All Alliance. Not only that, the character "普" in Chinese also means "multiple suns are shining in the sky". The Science for All Alliance believes that all teams should unite, just like multiple suns, to jointly carry out more high-quality science popularization work, so that more people can see our glory.
Science for All Alliance has a complete organizational structure to carry out all aspects of work.
Science for All Alliance is divided into five functional departments: New Media Department, Outreach Department, Organization Department, General Affairs Department and Mutual Evaluation Committee.
As a popular science work alliance, the work of the New Media Department is very important. The new media department is divided into two parts: the manuscript group and the video group, which correspond to text-based science content and video-based science content. The manuscript group is not only responsible for producing corresponding text-based science content, but also responsible for contacting other teams and reprinting relevant content. The video team is not only responsible for the production of video science content, but also for contacting other teams to reprint excellent content. The manuscript team is responsible for operating the WeChat account and Zhihu account, and the video team is responsible for operating the bilibili account.
The outreach part is the international exchange group and the enterprise group. The international exchange team is responsible for getting in touch with excellent foreign teams, and strive to translate their work content to the country, so that more people can benefit. The enterprise group is responsible for contacting domestic and foreign enterprises, media, etc., to provide everyone with a larger and more diverse platform for popular science work.
The organization part is activity group and cooperation group. The activity group is responsible for organizing larger regional gatherings. The cooperation group is responsible for helping various teams cooperate to carry out a series of branded science popularization activities.
The General Affairs Department is responsible for the management of the entire alliance, and is responsible for the changes, approval of activities, and fund management.
At the same time, in order to better help each team improve the quality of science popularization work, Science for All Alliance established a mutual evaluation committee, inviting people with different professional backgrounds and educational backgrounds to join the committee to evaluate each science popularization work. By collecting voices from different angles, we can help more people participate in popular science work, showing the unique diversity and Inclusivity of Science for All Alliance.
As the number of participating teams increases, Science for All Alliance hopes to:
1. Use the public account of "Science for All Alliance" to submit video and other promotional materials on major platforms. Having an official account recognized by the platform can better obtain support and allow related works to be seen by more people. At the same time, We hope to get in touch with many outstanding teams from other countries through the name of "Science for All Alliance", and introduce more non-Chinese content translations to China, so that the work of iGEMers can help more people. At the same time, the public account of Science for All Alliance will also back up the materials and content provided by iGEMers.
2. Science for All Alliance hopes to invite experts from all parties, iGEMer and ordinary students to set up committees to evaluate the content published by "Science for All Alliance" on various platforms. Because there are many intellectual problems in the popular science content done by many teams. The Science for All Alliance hopes to help iGEMers participating in the Science for All Alliance to improve the quality of science popularization work by establishing a mutual evaluation system.
3. Science for All Alliance will contact enterprises, media, etc. as a group, and provide iGEMers with a larger and more professional platform to conduct popular science publicity activities. At the same time, Science for All Alliance will also hold a series of activities as a group to help each team to preserve and pass on their own special activities into a system, on a large scale.
4. Science for All Alliance hopes to provide a platform for teams to communicate and cooperate with each other. The Science for All Alliance hopes to build a community, provide opportunities and platforms for cooperation between teams with similar ideas, and help everyone better conduct popular science publicity work.
Science for All Alliance has just started, and we hope that more teams will join us and work together to raise the science popularization work to a new height!
Science for All——Send knowledge for children
Because of the impact of the COVID-19, team BIT begin to think about how to carry out related work. In 2020, China will comprehensively build a well-off society. The members of team BIT are also thinking about how to use their own strength to contribute to the country.
Therefore, the members of team BIT started from the work of human practice and thought. There is a saying in China, "Poverty Alleviation and Aspiration", which means that we must not only help poor people rely on material poverty, but also help them establish their ideals. The members of the BIT team thought of these words and thought of the human practice work advocated by iGEM. The members of the BIT team agreed that we can also use our expertise to help the poor.
In the past, team BIT often went to elementary and high school to give science lectures, but most of them are close to the school. But this year and in the future, team BIT hopes to give knowledge to children in more distant areas, to help them see the outside world, and let them establish a lofty ideal! Therefore, team BIT got in touch with the Escort, a club of Beijing Institute of Technology. They are a team of volunteers dedicated to supporting teaching activities. Team BIT got in touch with them, hoping to jointly promote synthetic biology promotion lectures in the future, and send knowledge and strength to more children who have no chance to contact relevant knowledge.
Due to the impact of the COVID-19, there is no opportunity for offline education support activities this year. However, we have reached a cooperation with the Escort, produced a series of synthetic biology-related postcards, and wrote letters to the children. Team BIT will continue to implement related work in the future, so that human practice has more diverse performances. Hope we do better in another area in the future!
Created By Beijing Institute of Technology