Background

Education is widely accepted to be a fundamental resource, both for individuals and societies. Indeed, in most countries basic education is nowadays perceived not only as a right but also as a duty – governments are typically expected to ensure access to basic education, while citizens are often required by law to attain education up to a certain basic level. Regarding the consequences of education, a growing body of empirical research suggests that better education yields higher individual income and contributes towards the construction of social capital and long-term economic growth.

From a historical perspective, the world went through a great expansion in education over the past two centuries. This can be seen across all quantity measures. Global literacy rates have been climbing over the course of the last two centuries, mainly through increasing rates of enrollment in primary education. Secondary and tertiary education have also seen drastic growth, with global average years of schooling being much higher now than a hundred years ago. Despite all these worldwide improvements, some countries have been lagging behind, and educational disparities between regions within most countries are also large.

China is also a country with unbalanced regional development, and the problem of uneven distribution of educational resources is very obvious. What's more, constrained by long-term narrow thinking, people are more willing to accept something that seems to be more economical, while ignoring some basic science learning, especially subjects such as biology, which do not bring obvious direct benefits. However, as iGEMers, who are committed to promoting the development of synthetic biology, we are bound to see great economic benefits from the development of life sciences, such as the industrial transformation of some synthetic biology projects. In addition, as is known to all, the 21st century is a biological century, and life science has a great prospect for development. The lack of knowledge in this field will have a bad impact on the development of children in poor areas.

As a team with a strong sense of social responsibility, OUC-China is bound to make contributions to get out of this predicament. Considering that iGEM community carries forward the spirit of synthetic biology, OUC-China has organically combined these two aspects -- to carry out scientific popularization of synthetic biology for primary and middle school students in poor areas. This year, due to the impact of the COVID-19, offline education cannot be carried out. Therefore, we actively play the role of the Internet, a powerful medium, to popularize the basic knowledge of synthetic biology and some interesting frontier fields among children in poor areas.

What Did We Do?

Considering our docking schools, such as the Jiancha Secondary School in Guizhou Province, are located in the poor mountainous areas, with creaking infrastructure, we can’t estimate the cognitive level of students. Therefore, we designed the questionnaires to know the specific situation, including the main infrastructure, the children’s grasp of the knowledge of biology, and the teachers' understanding of synthetic biology, in order to make a more suitable plan for local conditions.

Questionnaire Analysis

Through the results of the questionnaire, we got some useful information. From Figure 1 we can know that teachers think cartoons and videos can help students understand science better.

Figure 1. The best method of popularization of science in teachers' minds

92.86% of teachers believe video is the best way to popularize science, which is the highest percentage of in all options. While only 64.29% and 85.71% of teachers choose word and comic as the best method respectively.

Although live broadcasting is more interactive and presents knowledge in a more vivid and interesting way, the equipment conditions in some regions are not enough to meet the requirements of online live broadcasting. Therefore, we plan to record popularization videos and print comics as auxiliary popularization methods. For regions unable to play videos, comics will be the main method.

Figure 2. The more suitable popularization forms in teachers' minds

Based on years of accumulated experience in the international synthetic biology competitions and the marine characteristics of our university, the scientific knowledge brought to children in poor areas by the iGEM team of the Ocean University of China can be divided into three themes: the basic knowledge of biology, synthetic biology, and marine biology. Based on this, we designed related questions to determine the main direction of science popularization.

Figure 3. The type of knowledge the teachers want us to teach the students the most

78.57% of teachers want us to teach students basic knowledge of biology, and the percent of teachers who want us to teach marine biology and synthetic biology is 64.29% and 50% respectively.

According to the feedback from the questionnaire, the proportion of knowledge related to biology, marine biology, and synthetic biology was 8:6:5 when we were preparing the popularization of science content.

Comics

With years of experience in comics, the knowledge of synthetic biology is reified and simplified in the form of caricatures by OUC-China to stimulate the learning interest of children in poor areas. In view of the Internet situation and environmental protection issues, comics are available in both paper and electronic versions. For areas with difficulties in accessing the Internet, printed comics on environment-friendly paper will be distributed. For areas with easy access to the Internet, electronic versions will be distributed. At the same time, we also published cartoons on OUCiGEM WeChat platform, so as to popularize the knowledge of synthetic biology to the general public. We have published a total of ten editions of comics, which were read by thousands of people, and achieved the basic purpose of disseminating synthetic biology knowledge.

Live Broadcasting

For schools with adequate facilities, such as Jiaozhou No. 29 Middle School, Kowloon No. 28 Middle School, Jiaozhou Shaohai Primary School, Kowloon Guan Wangmiao Primary School, Kowloon Longshan Primary School, and Kowloon Qinglian Hope Primary School in Jiulong Sub-district Office, Jiaozhou, Qingdao, we held live lectures. After early communication with teachers and combining with the actual situation of local students, we developed an impeccable and sustainable live lecture plan, and received good feedback after several lectures.

Figure 4. The first live lecture of OUC-China.

Video

The videos of popularization of science were divided into the basic knowledge of biology, synthetic biology, and marine biology three projects, each project covers several videos from easy to difficult. Through these videos, we infiltrated biology knowledge in all the aspects of children's life, step by step, to teach the children knowledge and stimulate their interest in the life sciences.

Figure 5. The students are watching our video.

Reference

1. https://ourworldindata.org/global-education