Team:NCKU Tainan/Education
Overview
Since the very first beginning, we have realized that it is crucial to broaden the public awareness and to convey correct information of synthetic biology and glaucoma. Over time, the public has had a rejection to synthetic biology with the controversies surrounding this emerging science. At the same time, glaucoma is known as a silent killer of vision, the public is often unaware of its presence and when there is a noticeable vision loss, it's already too late. This emphasizes the need of health education for preventing blindness due to glaucoma. Moreover, these issues occured for a long time because of the public’s limited access to both synthetic biology and glaucoma. That’s why we wanted to hold a series of educational events using various approaches to reach out and engage with many different members of the community to understand synthetic biology and glaucoma.
The most common educational method is the conventional education method, such as lectures which are teacher-centered. This method has proven to be effective for presenting information in a quick manner, sharing information that is not easily found and teaching learners who learn best by listening. However, in many cases, not all learners learn best by listening and not all learners learn in the same impersonal way implying that conventional education has its own limitations. Hence, we came up with non-conventional educational methods in order to broaden our scope of impact. Especially in this pandemic era, the internet is something we cannot live without. We decided to take advantage of this and bring our educational materials online.
Furthermore, as we are focusing on glaucoma, we thought of how the five senses have such a significant impact on our lives. Thus, we incorporated five senses to our education as sensory stimulation can increase the effectiveness of learning. Through social media, we made infographics to stimulate the sense of sight, podcast to stimulate the sense of hearing, and even videos to stimulate both senses. More than that, we organized a special live-action role-playing event to simulate blindness, allowing them to experience having to only rely on their other senses such as taste, touch and hearing. This event also allowed us to raise the awareness of blindness.
Education
" Education must be an equal opportunity for all. - Lailah Gifty Akita ,,
While developing Eye kNOw and Eye Screen, we faced a much more challenging problem- most people simply don't know glaucoma. To benefit the whole society, we realized we had a responsibility to let the public know about glaucoma in the first place. To ensure that everyone knows about glaucoma, education is essential. We aimed to educate people of all ages to raise society’s awareness of glaucoma as well as synthetic biology. In our education we experimented using both conventional and non-conventional educational methods.
Conventional educational methods
As we all know, the conventional educational method involves teachers teaching students in classes, allowing them to have a face to face interaction and in-class active learning session. In our conventional education, we aimed to educate children, adolescents, and elderly. We didn’t want different age groups to prevent us from sharing glaucoma and synthetic biology. Therefore, we need to adjust our method of teaching according to their age and knowledge.
Read for Love Summer Camp
The Read for Love Summer Camp was held jointly by NCKU Library and the Saint Island Charity Foundation for elementary students to record stories for the visually impaired. With the help of one of our PIs, Dr. Han-Qing Wang, we took this opportunity to introduce synthetic biology and glaucoma to the children. Teaching children such complicated topics is not as easy as we thought it would be. Considering that they were only elementary students, we added a lot of animations to our PowerPoint slides to grab hold of their attention and make it easier for them to imagine the mechanism of glaucoma. We also had to simplify our explanations using various ways, including not using any scientific terms while explaining the structure of the eye. Additionally, we also talked about the symptoms of glaucoma and how to prevent them. By raising glaucoma awareness among young children from an early age, we can begin cultivating a generation that understands glaucoma's seriousness.
Interestingly, we were also challenged to simulate the life of the blind. We were given a chance to listen, draw, eat, walk, and experience Braille in the dark. This allowed us to interact more with the children. We also learned that the "learning through play" method offers a meaningful and unique way of education from this activity. Not only did this experience allow us to understand more about the world of the visually impaired, but it also gave us the idea for our special event called Into the Darkness.
Tainan First Senior High School
We visited the best high school in Tainan, Tainan First Senior High School's scientific research club. First, we introduced iGEM and synthetic biology. Then, we talked about several past iGEM projects for them to understand the application of synthetic biology in the real world. After that, we divided them into groups of five or six students for a brainstorming session about how to solve synthetic biology problems. Each of the groups had one iGEM member to guide them through brainstorming. We asked about what problem they want to solve, then began discussing the cause of that problem and how we can use synthetic biology to solve it. Then, we asked them to share their ideas. It was their first time learning about the applications of gene editing. However, they were able to come up with countless marvelous ideas.
After that, we introduced our project and taught them the importance of glaucoma. However, we discovered that their basic knowledge of biology was not strong enough. We then tried to simplify the eye structure's explanation as much as possible to ensure that they understood. From this experience, we learned that we always need to think of our audience's background knowledge, regardless of their education level. Moreover, we also created a simple DIY perimeter to measure their peripheral vision. The students were very excited and enthusiastic about being able to create something useful with their own hands. We hope to inspire them to be the next generation of iGEMers, or the next generation of world-changers through this fantastic experience.
Check out this video to know more about how we conducted our education in TNFSH and their feedback!
Also, take a look at the tutorial video for the DIY perimeter!
The Tainan Young Men’s Christian Association
As the elderly are at a higher risk for glaucoma, we were grateful to have the opportunity to visit the YMCA, where we talked about synthetic biology and glaucoma. However, when preparing for this event, we faced an interesting problem - a language barrier. In Taiwan, especially here in Tainan, the older generation tends to communicate in the Taiwanese language, and most of them can't speak or understand Mandarin. The younger generation, on the other hand, rarely communicates in Taiwanese. Yet, to be able to engage with the elderly, we had to communicate using the Taiwanese language. It was a challenge and a new experience for us. Since we were going to talk about glaucoma, we had to mention some medical terms; so, we had to search for the Taiwanese translation and memorize them. We also tried our best to ensure that the elderly understood us.
During this event, we talked about preventing glaucoma and the correct way to take care of their eyes. Besides that, we had a little activity to let them experience blindness. We asked some of the elderly to wear a blindfold, then draw something with the non-blindfolded elderly's guidance. We hoped this would let them understand the importance of vision and know how to assist the visually impaired.
From these activities, we created a guide book showing the different ways used to educate people of different backgrounds in hopes to inspire other teams to include people of various backgrounds in their education plans.
Non-conventional educational methods
In this technological era, we can't deny the impact of social media in our daily lives. There are many social media platforms that allow us to connect with everyone, allowing us to see what is happening in the world. We knew that using only conventional educational methods cannot allow us to reach a global audience. On the contrary, technology is adding to numerous ways for us to communicate and engage with the world, as there are constantly new ways to reach out to people and grab their attention. We decided to use social media as social media is proven to be a fast and easy tool for sharing knowledge. It is able to provide a significant impact by reaching new audiences across the globe, enabling us to raise global awareness of synthetic biology and glaucoma.
Glaucoma Awareness Week (June 29 – July 5)
According to Glaucoma UK, June 29 - July 5, 2020, was glaucoma awareness week. As a team working on glaucoma treatment, we realized we had this responsibility to share about glaucoma. Thus, we prepared seven posts related to glaucoma, one for each day of glaucoma awareness week. Since visual content is simply more engaging to the average social media user, we decided to design simple infographics for this purpose. These were then posted on our official Instagram and Facebook accounts.
The Something Podcast
Podcasts are one new outlet that offers a fantastic way to communicate with our audiences. Podcasts are on the rise in popularity and are predicted to continue to expand as time goes on. Even the most mundane subjects can turn podcasts into fascinating learning opportunities that people want to know more about. People are used to conversing with each other, and a podcast is very much like a chat you're listening to. Especially in this pandemic era, where everyone is expected to isolate themselves, listening to a podcast can help simulate a conversation. In addition, most podcasts introduce to their content an aspect of storytelling, which makes it even more fun to listen to. Therefore, we decided to launch our own podcast, called ‘The Something Podcast’. The Something Podcast has six episodes in total, and each episode was released weekly every Saturday morning starting from September.
When we were deciding on the topics for each episode, we wanted the listeners to understand iGEM completely. That's why The Something Podcast was separated into three main sections. The first section (episode 1-3) is all about iGEM. We briefly introduced synthetic biology and talked about iGEM, including the sub-teams and what their role is. We also introduced our project and how we came up with Eye kNOw. Next, in the second section (episode 4 and 5), we talked more about the details of synthetic biology and glaucoma with the experts, which are our PIs. And in the last episode, we did a review of our podcast. We talked about what problems we faced and the effectiveness of our podcast as an education platform.
More than that, through inviting our amazing guests previous NCKU iGEMer, our members, and PIs, to share their experiences, we are able to let our listeners understand more about iGEM - not just about what iGEM is as a competition, but also how iGEM can affect our lives.
Synthetic Biology in 5 Levels
While brainstorming for ideas on how to effectively explain hard topics like synthetic biology to everyone in terms they can understand, we came across the ‘5 levels’ video series by WIRED on Youtube. In their series, an expert scientist explained a high-level subject in five different layers of complexity - first to a child, then a teenager, then an undergrad student, a grad student, and finally a colleague.
Taking inspiration from this series, we decided to come up with our own 5 levels video to talk about synthetic biology in five different layers of complexity - to a middle school student, a high school student, a college student, a grad student and finally a professor. (Video)
After we finished our education events, we realized both conventional and non-conventional methods have their own advantages and disadvantages. For conventional methods, we are able to have an face to face interaction and an in class active learning session with the audience, allowing the audience to have a chance to express their idea vocally. However, the audience is much limited compared to the non-conventional method using social media. Beside the limitless audience, the other advantage of non-conventional method is, it provides a flexible accessibility to it, anytime and anywhere. Both conventional methods and non-conventional methods are proven to develop learning and increase one’s knowledge with its own specific advantages. Both methods are worth the try, and it is needed for the instructor to smartly use the available tools to maximize the learning of each method.
Engagement
“ Alone, we can do so little; Together, we can do so much. - Helen Keller ,,
Apart from education, having a wide range of relationships with society is a critical aspect to consider. As we develop Eye kNOw and Eye Screen, we want to connect with more people and share what we have done with synthetic biology. More than that, by engaging with different members of society, we can get feedback that helps us to develop better treatment for people who suffer from glaucoma.
Undergraduate Research Day
National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) has always been encouraging students to develop their learning and research potential. Last year, National Cheng Kung University’s Research and Development Office held the first-ever "Undergraduate Research Day", and invited iGEM NCKU Tainan to share about our research experience to stimulate more students to explore the world of research. This year, Undergraduate Research Day was held again - this time at a much bigger scale. We were honored to be given a chance to present again this year. Not only did we talk about iGEM and our project, we also shared about how and why we chose glaucoma as our project. Then, we had a chance to promote our upcoming special event, Into the Darkness. After our presentation, numerous people contacted us to ask about iGEM. We hoped that through our experience sharing, we are able to increase college students’ interest in iGEM, as well as academic and interdisciplinary research.
NCKU Club Festival
Another new academic year, another club festival. NCKU club festival is an annual event where all the clubs association in NCKU will introduce and promote their club to the students, especially to the freshmen. We registered for a stall in the festival, where we introduced ourselves and our project this year. Not only that, we also approached them directly and roamed around the festival area to pass flyers. At the same time, we promoted our upcoming events, which were the final topic presentation and contact lens recycling movement. Not only did we want to promote contact lens recycling, we also wanted to collect ideas on what to do with the recycled lenses from the students. Thus, we also asked them how to recycle the contact lens? We got many creative ideas, such as melting the contact lens, then pouring it into a mold, or making the contact lens into art. From this event, we received a lot of positive feedback regarding our project and we were also able to increase student’s awareness and interest about iGEM as quite a number of students contacted our facebook fanpage, asking about iGEM and how to join it.
iGEM Taiwan Meet-up Conference
Despite the pandemic, we were thankful that we were still able to join the iGEM Taiwan Meet-up conference in person. Held by National Chung Hsing University in Taichung, this two days event allowed the Taiwanese iGEM teams to meet each other and shared about their project through the presentation and the poster session. After the presentation, there was a Q&A session, where we could obtain a lot of constructive feedback from the teachers and other students regarding our project. We also learned to improve our presentation style and the way to answer the questions. There were also several guest speakers, including a previous iGEMer who had managed to turn their iGEM project into a startup - which inspired us to keep developing our project to eventually be realized one day. More than that, we also got to know each of the team’s superb projects and network with each other. Simultaneously, we took this opportunity to promote our partnership event, "I've Gotta PhD" with iGEM CSMU Taiwan.
Topic Presentation
Before we voted for Eye kNOw as our final project, we held a topic presentation. After our brainstorming, we were separated into three groups to propose their topics, which were, targeting iron as a treatment for cellulitis, sense plant's nitrogen status to solve over-fertilization, and expressing nitric oxide as a treatment for glaucoma. After a couple months of progress and development, we then presented our topics to the teachers and the students at our university. We also gave them an opportunity to vote for a topic that interested them the most and write a review. Each group had a 20 minutes presentation and 10 minutes of QA session. It allowed us to find the problems in our projects and improve them before deciding on our final project.
iGEM Mingdao
Some members of iGEM Mingdao came to Tainan, and also visited us in NCKU. We had lunch together and exchanged both team’s projects. Through this meal, both teams received many feedback regarding both projects. As both our teams are working on therapeutics track, we were able to discuss how we dealt with biosafety.
iGEM NCTU Formosa
We were delighted to have a video call with iGEM NCTU Formosa. We talked about our project and gave feedback to each other. During this video call, we were asked multiple questions, especially about the biosafety of our contact lens. This allowed us to pay attention to our biosafety more. Beside our project, we also talked about the experiments and plans for human practices.
NCKU President Meet-up
We were honored to have lunch with the president of NCKU, Dr. Huey-Jen Jenny Su. She has been very supportive of iGEM NCKU Tainan since the very beginning. We introduced ourselves and what we want to achieve for the competition. The president gave us a lot of encouragement and valuable advice, such as how to improve as a team. We are thankful for the massive support from the school.
GenScript-MolecularCloud
GenScript is a global leading biotech company which has been supporting iGEM since 2009. This year, they offer a grant for GenScript products and services through the MolecularCloud platform. Through joining this grant scholarship opportunity, we had the chance to be interviewed by MolecularCloud through Instagram Live. We talked about the mechanism of our project, how did COVID-19 affect our lab work and raise glaucoma awareness. This live interview was a new experience for us. We hoped that through this interview, we are able to widen our platform and let more people understand about glaucoma, and also what we are trying to do.
Online Meetups
Due to COVID-19 pandemic, everything is happening online - including iGEM meetups. This gave us the opportunity to join the many overseas iGEM meetups that we might not have the chance to join in normal circumstances. Due to this, we are able to network with many other iGEM teams that are on the other side of the world.
We joined these meetups:
1. 2nd Annual iGEM Meetup – Asia by iGEM iBowu China (August 15)
2. iGEMeetParis - Worldwide Virtual Meetup hosted by Parisian teams by iGEM IONIS Paris, iGEM Sorbonne, iGEM Paris Saclay, iGEM Evry, iGEM Paris Bettencourt (September 5-6)
3. cGEM (Canadian Genetically Engineered Machine) Conference by Amy Yeung, Jehoshua Sharma, Luana Langlois (former iGEM team presidents from Toronto, Guelph, and Western, respectively) (October 3-4)
Most of the meetups provided opportunities for teams to give a short pitch on their project. This opportunity allowed us to find some bugs and issues in our projects that we have never thought of before, such as how we can ensure our bacteria’s metabolic products won’t harm our eyes. In addition to the presentations, there are also many other interesting events, such as workshops and socializing events. We were very excited to meet other iGEMers, and we had a lovely time communicating with them.
iGEM NCKU 2020 Special Event
Into the Darkness
While in the process of developing our project, we realized that raising awareness about glaucoma and blindness plays an important role in realizing the potential of our project. When it comes to many eye diseases, including glaucoma, a little preventive care can prevent the afflictions in the first place. But, people are just not aware of the importance of eye care. Hence, we decided to spur people’s awareness by letting them experience what blindness is like, hoping that this experience can encourage them to take care of their eyes.
We first thought of launching our own ‘Dining in the Dark’ experience, a culinary experience in which people will try to eat a full meal in the dark. However, in order to appeal to the college students, we planned to include more sensory-engaging activities in the dark other than just eating. Eventually, we combined this with live-action role-playing, or better known as LARP, where players portray a character and embark on a role-playing adventure. With an intriguing storyline and interesting hints, we launched our very first LARP game, Into the Darkness.
We simulated a dark environment by covering any source of light in a room and used low budget DIY equipment for the hints. Not only will players be able to experience the life of the visually impaired through the sensory-engaging activities, they are also able to learn about synthetic biology through this new and fresh approach. More than that, they will have a chance to use their critical thinking and problem-solving skills to solve the hints and win the game. Deprived of their sense of vision, players will need to rely on their other senses in order to succeed in this LARP game.
Into the Darkness was held in the Department of System and Naval Mechatronic Engineering in our university for a limited two-days event. Since its unveiling, Into the Darkness was played by a total of 11 teams, with a total of over 60 players. We received many positive responses, and thus proved that Into the Darkness was a massive hit!
Introducing Into the Darkness
“Dr. X’s biological weapon research was successful! Everyone gathered in the laboratory to get a glimpse of the results. Suddenly, the biological weapon containing the APEX virus was destroyed! It will cause blindness immediately to anyone that is exposed to it. Can you find the antidote to restore your eyesight? And find out who destroyed the weapon?”
We made use of two separate classrooms that have been specially decorated to help players immerse themselves in the experience - a conference room and Dr. X’s laboratory. Into the Darkness consists of three stages, with a total playtime of 60 minutes. The three stages will use up around 18 minutes, 35 minutes and 7 minutes respectively.
Here, we provided a map of the game, as well as a short description of the three stages to get a visual representation of our Into the Darkness special event.
Stage 1: Find the antidote
The players will first choose or draw the roles they will be playing, before gathering in the conference room and reading about their character's guide to understand about their characters, and they are allowed to communicate with other characters. To signal the start of the game, a bomb sound effect is played, indicating that the biological weapon has been destroyed. This is when the lights will be turned off, turning the whole room dark, indicating that the players have lost their eyesight because of the virus. To restore their eyesight, the players must find the keys hanging on the wall, there are 4 keys in total. After obtaining the correct key, they can open the box beside the table. However, inside the box, there are packages of snacks and a locked box containing the antidote. To open the box, the players must eat the packages of snacks with different flavors. The code for the key is according to the number of packages, sour-sweet-spicy-salty. After breaking the code, the lights will turn on, indicating the players have regained their eyesight and they can now move to the second stage.
Stage 2: Find the hints
All of the hints are located in Dr. X's laboratory. But, before searching for the hints, players must stop the ventilation system and prevent the virus from spreading out of the lab. To stop it they have to enter a password into the laptop. After solving the problem, players are then allowed to search for the hints. Players are also allowed to hide the hints that might disadvantage them.
Stage 3: Find the culprit
After finding the hints, the players will go back to the conference room and discuss who might be the culprit with the hints they founded. After that, we ask each player to vote for 2 people who they think might be the culprit, then they are allowed to defend themselves. Finally, the players will vote who is the final culprit.
We also provided a guidebook on how to reproduce Into the Darkness, so please be sure to check it out!
