Team:IISER-Pune-India/Education

Webinar
Radio Show
Tangrams
Malaria Song
Journals
In the Media
Social Media

Webinar

We conducted a joint webinar in collaboration with the Team IISER_Berhampur 2020, aimed at school children. We wanted to target this particular demographic because we felt that educating children was extremely necessary not only because they would hopefully carry what theyтАЩd learnt into adulthood, but because teaching children would have an impact on the community as a whole since they would relay what theyтАЩd learnt to their families and friends and would also be enthusiastic to actively participate in prevention efforts.

The webinar called, тАЬAttack of Mosquitoes: Warriors AssembleтАЭ, was conducted on 16th August, with the aim of spreading awareness about the science and the prevalence of dengue and malaria and prevention strategies to combat them. We also talked about the biology of mosquitoes and conducted fun games and activities.

The webinar culminated with a contest, that asked the participants to send us before and after photos of their efforts to clean their surroundings and identify and eliminate possible breedings sites for mosquitoes, in a bid to give them practical, actionable ways to apply what theyтАЩd learnt in the webinar and the winners of the contest received Amazon vouchers.

The webinar was a resounding success, with 115 participants and over 20 contest entries.

We also conducted a survey before and after the webinar to gauge the pre-existing knowledge base of the participants and to assess how effective the webinar had been. The results of the survey have been summarised below.

Survey Results Before the Webinar

Most of the participants were aware of the vectors that carry dengue and malaria before the webinar.

However over 50% of the participants wrongly identified proven preventive strategies for both malaria and dengue. Over 90% of the participants were aware of the peak seasons for both the diseases.

Over 80% of the participants either underestimated or overestimated the number of deaths per day caused by mosquito-borne diseases.

Survey Results After the Webinar

This time around 40% of the participants wrongly identified proven preventive strategies for both malaria and dengue and over 98% of participants were aware of the peak seasons for both the diseases.

Around 50% of the participants either underestimated or overestimated the number of deaths per day caused by mosquito-borne diseases after the webinar.

Radio Show

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire country was under lockdown making large physical gatherings virtually impossible. We thus had to become creative with technology to spread awareness on a large scale and thatтАЩs how the idea for a radio show was born!

One of the main reasons we chose to do a radio show in a regional language (Hindi) was that it had a very wide reach that wasnтАЩt restricted to mainly urban dwellers as with other forms of communication such as social media. Luckily one of our team members, Rupal Gehlot, happened to live near a popular radio station and they agreed to host her! She did a 10-minute show on the All India Radio Channel, which was broadcasted live in Mount Abu, Rajasthan.

She talked about the factors and the mechanism of transmission of malaria and gave tips on how to prevent incidences of the disease and protect oneself from contracting it. She also talked about important preventive measures against COVID-19, given the state of affairs at the time.

You can read the Transcript of the show here.



And you can also listen to the recording of the show here.

Listen to the Recording:

Tangrams

Plenty of students at IISER Pune have been passionate about working towards the betterment of the world around them. As a result, Disha, the social outreach club at IISER Pune, was born over 10 years ago. They run multiple programs throughout the year aimed at educating children from underprivileged communities. One such program is Spread the Smile (STS), where volunteers from IISER spend three weekends in nearby villages interacting with young children, demonstrating science experiments, doing fun activities and answering the kidsтАЩ questions!

As part of STS 2020, we decided to create a small module that would explain a basic aspect to the children of synthetic biology - genetic engineering - as simply as possible to the kids. Our team worked together to brainstorm activities that would be simple but effective in helping kids understand how the engineering of genes from one organism into another organism is an immensely useful tool in biology - it not only helps us study organisms better, but can be incredibly useful in many industries, be it food production or pharmaceuticals.

We decided to use tangrams to explain this! Tangrams are wonderful mathematical puzzles where 7 basic shapes can be put together into thousands of different complex shapes. The solution for how to put together a particular complex shape was like a manual, or a тАШgeneтАЩ. Different cells had different manuals, so each cell could only make what the manual had instructions for. We divided the kids into groups, and each group was given a tangram set and a set of manuals. The kids then learnt that if they shared a copy of their тАШmanualтАЩ with another тАШcellтАЩ, the new cell could now make a new complex shape that it couldnтАЩt before!

Volunteers from IISER explained to the kids briefly what cells were before the start of the activity, and how cells were mini factories that relied on these тАШmanualsтАЩ in order to produce materials required by the cell. A link to the document that was circulated to volunteers explaining the entire module can be found here.



Overall, members from the iGEM team had plenty of fun making the activity, and the kids seemed to enjoy and learn too!


Malaria Song

We wanted to come up with a fun way to spread awareness about malaria prevention since there already existed a number of informative resources on the subject all over the internet. We were inspired to create a Malaria song by the countless variants weтАЩd seen of the тАЬHandwashing SongтАЭ, which resurfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic.



Or alternatively, here's just the audio with the lyrics:

The Malaria Song

Lyrics

Monsoon rains now thatтАЩs our call
Prepare yourselves for a mosquito fall
Disease and death weтАЩll bring along
Save yourselves with the malaria song!

You better run and hide, it's malaria time
Repellents and nets they'll keep you fine
Pools of water they're our goldmines
Eliminate them and we'll decline

Fever, sweat, fatigue and chills
That's how you know it's time for pills
Visit your doctor, pay your bills
Don't wait too long, malaria kills

You better run and hide, it's malaria time
Repellents and nets they'll keep you fine
Pools of water they're our goldmines
Eliminate them and we'll decline

DonтАЩt get fooled by baseless cures
Homoeopathy, vitamins wonтАЩt save you for sure
If you wanna fight us, make the right call
How to stay safe? LetтАЩs recall!

You better run and hide, it's malaria time
Repellents and nets they'll keep you fine
Pools of water they're our goldmines
Eliminate them and we'll decline

Journals

Through the collaboration with Team MSP-Maastricht 2020 we could publish a part of our research work in the two unofficial iGEM journals, 'iGEM Vector' and 'iGEM Muggle Journal'. iGEM Vector is a scientific journal that contains the 42 peer reviewed articles collected from and reviewed by 32 iGEM teams from all over the world. We also could publish our work: тАШIn-silico designing and analysis of peptide inhibitors against P. falciparum malariaтАЩ in the journal. It targets the scientific community and mainly our fellow iGEMers

The iGEM Muggle journal is a scientifically simplified version of the proceedings journal mainly targeting the general public who are interested in science but have less experience reading research articles. To quote directly from the journal; тАШIf you donтАЩt communicate the science, you may as well never have done it. In todayтАЩs world, itтАЩs not only pursuing science, but communicating about it effectively thatтАЩs important. Science often has the problem that it stays in its own тАШbubbleтАЩ and the improvements, inventions and discoveries stay out of grasp for the general public. This is a large problem in this day and age as science is one of the most integral parts of society, at the same time scientific progress advances so fast that the general always lags behindтАЩ. A scientifically simplified version of our proceedings journal article was published in the journal. By publicising our works through the two journals, especially the Muggle journal, we believe that we could effectively communicate a part of our scientific works to a more wider audience.

The front cover of the iGEM Muggle Journal
The first page of our article in the journal

In the Media

Indian Express [Article Link]
Pune Mirror
Kalpa, IISER Pune's Student Media Body
Sakal

Social Media

A large chunk of our public engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic induced quarantine, was through our social media handles. We put up posters, infographics, surveys, outreach activities and engaged with and educated the general public digitally. You can find some of our infographics below!