Team:Mingdao/wilson test
Mingdao
Overview
About Education and Public Engagement, we wanted to introduce synthetic biology and our poroject to the society,raising awareness of oral health problems. Thus, we started to think about the easiest way to achieve our goal, then we came up with designing a board game about biology. With the game, players can understand what biology is easily. Then we went to a elementary school nearby to teach them how to play the game, and it turned out to be a big success. Through the activity, we found that with games and practicum, students learn things more quickly. Therefore we went on to the next activity, practical workshop. The workshop is the major part of STEAM FAIR, a series of scientific courses. In there, students can learn how to operate easy experiments of biotechnology. In addition, to let the participants understand how to apply synthetic biology, we made an animation and play it during the practical workshop.
After the event, some of the participants applied to become one of the members of iGEM Mingdao 2021. Then some of our members give them a lesson about what is "iGEM", and what we were doing then. When our project is drawing to a close, we held an intramural presentation to introduce our project to all the students, teachers, and our parents. Throughout all the activities above, we inspired many younger students and led them step into the boundless ocean of science. That's what we expected and glad to see.
After the event, some of the participants applied to become one of the members of iGEM Mingdao 2021. Then some of our members give them a lesson about what is "iGEM", and what we were doing then. When our project is drawing to a close, we held an intramural presentation to introduce our project to all the students, teachers, and our parents. Throughout all the activities above, we inspired many younger students and led them step into the boundless ocean of science. That's what we expected and glad to see.
Board Game
According to our past experiences in local elementary school’s volunteering works and services, we realised that dental care among younger children was not emphasised and raised to awareness. Although our society is now heavily tech-focused, and every child has his or her phone, they do not necessarily search up information about oral or dental care. Instead, children mostly use their phone as a tool for video games or social media. Therefore, our group decided to create a board game for educational purposes, aiming to convey the importance of dental care to those children.
Our team has specifically chosen board game design for two reasons: First, as mentioned, children do not necessarily research into dental cares on the internet. In their perspective, brushing teeth is often disgusted and troublesome; which they must do it three times a day and revisit dental consultation twice a year. Meanwhile, they are also unenthusiastic toward the maintenance of their oral cleanse. Throughout our board game design, we hope to teach children the importance of oral care in a much exciting way. Second, board games are relatively preservable in the creator’s intention. While video games are more likely to be an entertaining-based, board game emphasises the process; especially when it is designed for educational purposes. Board games can connect people from different ages (such as parents and their children) and in a healthier way. We, as teenagers, also believe that it will be less competitive and effective if we present our topic (dental care) in forms of video games.
In the project, our target audience is mainly children in elementary school. Our board game design communicates the ecology of oral environments in a both scientific and entertaining way. Although there are unfamiliar contents such as Streptococcus Mutans, Streptococcus Sanguinis, and other biological terms presented in our board game, we offer these in a children-understandable way. Overall, we design the board game into warfare between Streptococcus Mutans and Streptococcus Sanguinis. Difficult concepts such as biofilm, H2O2,or bacteriocin are described in terms of weapons, defences, or poisons. Thus, the interaction between oral bacteria can be more imaginable by younger children, even without any scientific background.
Our team has specifically chosen board game design for two reasons: First, as mentioned, children do not necessarily research into dental cares on the internet. In their perspective, brushing teeth is often disgusted and troublesome; which they must do it three times a day and revisit dental consultation twice a year. Meanwhile, they are also unenthusiastic toward the maintenance of their oral cleanse. Throughout our board game design, we hope to teach children the importance of oral care in a much exciting way. Second, board games are relatively preservable in the creator’s intention. While video games are more likely to be an entertaining-based, board game emphasises the process; especially when it is designed for educational purposes. Board games can connect people from different ages (such as parents and their children) and in a healthier way. We, as teenagers, also believe that it will be less competitive and effective if we present our topic (dental care) in forms of video games.
In the project, our target audience is mainly children in elementary school. Our board game design communicates the ecology of oral environments in a both scientific and entertaining way. Although there are unfamiliar contents such as Streptococcus Mutans, Streptococcus Sanguinis, and other biological terms presented in our board game, we offer these in a children-understandable way. Overall, we design the board game into warfare between Streptococcus Mutans and Streptococcus Sanguinis. Difficult concepts such as biofilm, H2O2,or bacteriocin are described in terms of weapons, defences, or poisons. Thus, the interaction between oral bacteria can be more imaginable by younger children, even without any scientific background.
Education project in Chiao-Jen Elementary School
In June, we went to the nearby elementary school to teach the students about oral hygiene and played the board game we designed with them, in order to raise awareness of the serious problem of cavities and arouse their desire of learning biology. For the oral hygiene part, we prepared some courses, including the diagram of teeth, what cause cavities, what we can do to prevent our teeth from cavities, the correct way to brush the teeth, how to choose the teeth brush, and so on. Additionally, we let them estimate their dental plaque to check if they clean their teeth properly. After we finished the course, we played the board game with them. Since they are just little kids, we simplify the game. Although it might still be a little bit difficult for them, they were all trying their best to learn it. With the simple test of dental plaque and the board game, which are pretty interesting for these little kids, they all learned and played happily.
Through this course, we try to have them know the simple knowledge of oral hygiene and biology. We were truly lucky to meet these adorable and cheerful kids!
STEAM FAIR
Every year, the biotechnology center of our school, or BioLab for short, will hold a series of scientific activities which are called STEAM FAIR. The STEAM FAIR activities including lectures given by domestic famous scientists, and practical biotech workshop with some simple experiments.
Last year, we asked BioLab to let us undertake the workshop, then we started to design the activities we wanted to held, including the courses and worksheets. The workshop was divided into three days(parts). For the first day, we have the experiment of electrophoresis. We taught participants the principle of the experiment as we conducted the experiment step by step, so that they could understand it better. For the second part of the activity, we taught them what constitute DNA and how it works. With the simple game we designed for beginners, they got to understand the mystery of life better. As for the third part, we have the experiment of plasmid DNA extraction. Just like day1, we patiently describe the principle of each step, and after they finished doing the experiment, we asked them to try to complete the worksheets by themselves, so that they could absorb the experiment better.
The purpose and the main idea of the workshop is to afford the students who are interested in biotechnology a chance to understand the field more. In addition, we could also recruit iGEM team members for 2021. Fortunately, the activities are big successes, both our members and the participants learn a lot from STEAM FAIR!
Last year, we asked BioLab to let us undertake the workshop, then we started to design the activities we wanted to held, including the courses and worksheets. The workshop was divided into three days(parts). For the first day, we have the experiment of electrophoresis. We taught participants the principle of the experiment as we conducted the experiment step by step, so that they could understand it better. For the second part of the activity, we taught them what constitute DNA and how it works. With the simple game we designed for beginners, they got to understand the mystery of life better. As for the third part, we have the experiment of plasmid DNA extraction. Just like day1, we patiently describe the principle of each step, and after they finished doing the experiment, we asked them to try to complete the worksheets by themselves, so that they could absorb the experiment better.
The purpose and the main idea of the workshop is to afford the students who are interested in biotechnology a chance to understand the field more. In addition, we could also recruit iGEM team members for 2021. Fortunately, the activities are big successes, both our members and the participants learn a lot from STEAM FAIR!
Animation of Syn-Bio Introduction
After playing the board game with the students in nearby elementary school, we noticed that the concept of synthetic biology was still vague for them. Therefore, our education crew came up with a solution - making an easy understanding animation for the public to comprehend. While paraphrasing the concept and learning how to make animation from the beginner's level were both suffering, we still tried our best to produce our first animation video eventually. From the historical aspect to its applications, this video aims to make concepts that's too abstract more concrete.
We premiered the animation during STEAM fair and also uploaded it onto our official youtube channel, which allowed those who are interested in synthetic biology to watch and obtain knowledge from it. Apart from the numerous praises and compliments we received by making this animation, we ought to work on making more educational clips to promote the concept of synthetic biology.
We premiered the animation during STEAM fair and also uploaded it onto our official youtube channel, which allowed those who are interested in synthetic biology to watch and obtain knowledge from it. Apart from the numerous praises and compliments we received by making this animation, we ought to work on making more educational clips to promote the concept of synthetic biology.
2021 Members Audition
In addition to attending the competition, we have another important mission, which is to interview and select the team members for Mingdao iGEM 2021.
Academic performance or their familiarity in biology isn’t the only standard to evaluate whether the student is capable or not to be selected. What really matter are their skills on interacting and communicating with others, and their skills on multitasking and their ability to work independently.
The selected personnel were then given lectures by iGEM 2020 members. We briefly told them what “iGEM” is and what participants have to do in this competition. We explain each part of the team’s obligation, including Experiment, HP, Modeling, and so on. By the way, we also introduced our project to them and shared some valuable experience that we gained from the process of doing the project, from simple prior knowledge to some experiment techniques, even to the protocol of some advanced experiment.
All of them claimed that through the lesson we gave them, they really have learned a lot from us, and the positive feedback is truly an incentive to all of our team members!
Academic performance or their familiarity in biology isn’t the only standard to evaluate whether the student is capable or not to be selected. What really matter are their skills on interacting and communicating with others, and their skills on multitasking and their ability to work independently.
The selected personnel were then given lectures by iGEM 2020 members. We briefly told them what “iGEM” is and what participants have to do in this competition. We explain each part of the team’s obligation, including Experiment, HP, Modeling, and so on. By the way, we also introduced our project to them and shared some valuable experience that we gained from the process of doing the project, from simple prior knowledge to some experiment techniques, even to the protocol of some advanced experiment.
All of them claimed that through the lesson we gave them, they really have learned a lot from us, and the positive feedback is truly an incentive to all of our team members!
Debate Competition
Genetically modified (GM) foods are those whose genetic materials are altered from its nature. It has been quite debatable whether GM foods should be accepted and allowed in food marketing. Although there is no positive correlation between GM food and health issues, it is still a concern considered both human health and the natural environment. Therefore, we decided to conduct a debate on genome editing. In this debate, participants will be either debating against or for genome editing. To prepare for the debate, participants will need to investigate why or why no genome editing should be legalized using environmental, social, and economic aspects. After the debate, the judge (1 school’s biology teacher and 2 past IGEM participants) will evaluate who won the debate.
The debate was evaluated by the judges, and they decided to go with people supporting GMO. In that case, they have the same stance as the National Academies of Sciences. They support GMOs because it is obvious that GMOs can solve issues such as hunger and poverty among developing countries. In addition, it alleviated the carbon footprint in the agriculture industry. Genetic engineering helps farmers to cultivate crops that resist diseases, insect pests, and drought, meaning that the farmers can harvest more efficiently and generate more profits. To take one of the countless examples, farmers in East Asia and South Asia have been gaining extra profits by growing GMOs which were then exported to Westerners. Although GMOs are not allowed in nowadays society, they look forward to the potential of future GMOs development.
The debate was evaluated by the judges, and they decided to go with people supporting GMO. In that case, they have the same stance as the National Academies of Sciences. They support GMOs because it is obvious that GMOs can solve issues such as hunger and poverty among developing countries. In addition, it alleviated the carbon footprint in the agriculture industry. Genetic engineering helps farmers to cultivate crops that resist diseases, insect pests, and drought, meaning that the farmers can harvest more efficiently and generate more profits. To take one of the countless examples, farmers in East Asia and South Asia have been gaining extra profits by growing GMOs which were then exported to Westerners. Although GMOs are not allowed in nowadays society, they look forward to the potential of future GMOs development.
Intramural Presentation
On september 4th, we hosted a special event in our school, which was the intramural presentation. However, we did it in a way different from usual this year. We demonstrated a scientific poster about our research. Everyone interested and curious about our project could come and we would introduce it to them clearly. In the evening, we invited our parents to attend and gave them leaflets made on our own. We showed every part of our project to them. None of them weren’t surprised at what we had done.
We cherished this opportunity to practice and viewed it as a formal competition, thus getting lots of positive and useful feedback from the participants. What they cared the most was the safety of our product while some of them thought that our achievement was worth expecting. Moreover, we realized that we still had lots of things to improve. The presentation was worthwhile, for our team could gain feedback from them. We were grateful to all the participants for giving us some suggestions.
We cherished this opportunity to practice and viewed it as a formal competition, thus getting lots of positive and useful feedback from the participants. What they cared the most was the safety of our product while some of them thought that our achievement was worth expecting. Moreover, we realized that we still had lots of things to improve. The presentation was worthwhile, for our team could gain feedback from them. We were grateful to all the participants for giving us some suggestions.
