Team:Peking/Human Practices
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Creating art with DNA is not just about computers or tubes. It is more about human. It needs human wisdom to imagine, to develop, and to appreciate. For these reasons, we have decided not to leave our works inside the lab. Instead, we use them as a window to share the beauty of life with both iGEMers and the common public.
Public Engagement
Biology Festival for Kids
Nowadays, a great number of biology technologies have appeared in people's life. They play important roles in fields like agriculture, medicine, and environment protection. While some people are curious and optimistic about them, others may feel indifferent, confused, or even worried.
How would the new generation live in such a world? How would they see biological sciences, and the magical effects they bring? As future researchers in biology, we think we should help the children find out the answers with their own experience. On October 1-3, we held a biology festival for kids at Shenzhen Youth Center together with GZ_HFI. Thanks to the lab that Bluepha Co. kindly lent us, we were able to provide our visitors with an hour immersed in amazing biology. We two teams kindly shared the place for exhibition and discussed about publicity strategies especially targeting children. They also help us broaden our horizon and take more exciting topics into our project's consideration.
As soon as the children got sight of the lab, they would discover six posters presenting both the natural beauty of life and the pictures we had created out of DNA codes. As they stopped by the snowflakes and petals, our team members would give them a brief introduction on the posters. They could get an impression of how the DNA sequences of fireflies decided the patterns of the bamboos on Chinese ink paintings, and how that of a jellyfish created a galaxy.
The lab became even more crowded during our class sessions. Children came with their parents to learn about the secrets of DNA. Through the lively examples of blood types, faces and detective stories, the audience could take a grasp of the mysterious but ever-present concept of DNA. Every time after class, there would be several kids staying to play the game "from genetic codes to bracelets" By choosing various beads according to different DNA sequences, the players could understand the basic logic of DNA storage.
If the curious kids continued down the route of exhibition, they would find themselves in a corridor reflecting the evening sky. Fireworks blazed and shimmered in the dark, like shooting stars and falling flowers. At the end of the path, they would be told that the patterns of the fireworks were decided by certain genetic codes.
Inside the lab, some children were trying pipettes excitedly, even if their hands were just large enough to hold them. On the same table, other kids were inspecting algae and shrimps under the microscopes. Instead of telling them the standard methods directly, we encouraged and guided them to discover the functions of the instrument themselves. The little scientists would scream in happiness after a long struggle to make some discovery.
During the Biology Festival, our team also made connections with the teachers in charge of the lab, the local university students and the iGEM team from the Affiliated High School of SCNU. We discussed biology, information technology and education from different perspectives, and learned much from each other.
We were glad to see that almost all our visitors left with excited expressions. Hopefully, our efforts have planted a little seed into their hearts, which might grow into ever-lasting curiosity and interest in biology. In the future, they might use science to make their world a better place
Quiz App
Talking about DNA engineering with experiment charts might be a little boring for the public who has not invested so much time in biological studies. Fortunately, music itself is a universal language to communicate. The capricious tunes of the music, along with stories and pictures, can pave steps for everyone into the garden of biology.
So, it comes our Discovering Life quiz app. When users scan the QR code, they will be led into a marvelous story about life on Earth, such as the formation of the first cell, the voyage of an orca mother with her dead baby, and a brave wolf escaping the hunters"traps. We have buried "treasure"for them to discover during the exploration, which are several questions about biology, information storage, or music. After they have passed the test, a piece of DNA-coded music will play for them as the award. Because the users have gained some background knowledge about this form of art in the quiz, they are able to understand the music better.
After we had distributed the QR codes, we found that Discovering Life also had an additional bonus. From the correct rate of each question, we were able to find out which points in biology and information technology were known better to the public, and which remained unknown to outsiders. From the 268 answer sheets we received, we could say the participants did quite well in common knowledge about Earth history (correction rate 74%), but less so in animal distinction and classification (correction rate 46%). Popular science still has a long way to go, and we should play our part well.
Education
See our work at education here.
Integrated Human Practice
Cooperative Art Creation
From the pine trees in ink and wash to the sunflowers in oil painting, the sparkling moments of art have always been nourished by the richness of nature. Now with the methods of synthetic biology, artists can inspect life from its most basic structures. Although synthetic biology gives us "building blocks"to remodel life, it does not mean that we could claim full victory on nature. On the contrary, it reveals the fact that human beings are not so different from other life forms, and that all life is equal in the genetic terms.
The project started with a set of poems in the form of verdicts. In traditional Chinese culture, a verdict is a summary of someone’s destiny. The poems are inspired by certain genes, and they wonderfully resonate because genes, in a way, tell the stories of a species’ fate. The inspiration ranges from transposons to oncogenes, perfectly showing the development and struggle of life. These special verdicts are a scroll about how the past mingles with the present, and how the East meets the West. The poems and their general ideas are as below (in numerology, the sentences can be translated into a person’s destiny):
别离伶人跳了墙对墙，新娘二意为己防。柔荑似水自流淌，栅栏与火窥花房。
PartingsWhen the clown has left his wedding bed, his bride dreamt of a dangerous scheme.As her hand drooped like flowing water, the fences were conversing with firelight.
熬练金针施法灭妖魔，木炉烧化朱露香。钢钻破碎修补成，堂前乌燕吞烛光。
RefinementAs the metal pierced the cell, chromosomes struggled out of the cave. The diamond was shattered and mended, with a dying fire dwelling inside.
出山裸俑行军对鬃马，目里寒光射丈矛。蜘蛛失其角非角，是我来瞧不来到。
CombatThe naked warrior was fighting a mustang, with spears shining in his eyes. The spider had lost its antenna, of which I could only see but not reach.
交合晨光破晓堵竹漏，白棋占了黑棋洞。我似你来你作我，牝鸡一叫天下白。
ReconciliationThe gloomy dawn covered the crack in the bamboo, As the white chess piece fell in the place of the black. I would become you and you would become me, And together we would see the color of another sunrise.
After the poem was translated to a long string of DNA codes, we would transform it into a piece of music according to our “music codons”. At last, the music would be played with a short video about all the related scenes, greatly inspiring the viewers’ imagination. Together, we would tell a story about the equality of all life.
We have also designed an exhibition plan for the artwork. As the picture shown below, the poems would be demonstrated in different color by microorganisms in the culture medium. Our music video would be played on the screen, and the original DNA sequences would be stored in the small bottles on the table.
Communication with iGEMers across China
On August 3rd, we participated in the online meetup held by Worldshaper-Shanghai high school team. A total of six team were present: ASTWS-China,Worldshaper-Shanghai, Worldshaper-Nanjing, KEYSTONE, XH-Chnia, and Peking. We gave a brief presentation of on-going project and discussed about our progress and the difficulties that pandemic had brought us.
In August, the iGEMers in China held a forum in Nanjing. On the forum, we shared our ideas of evolving music in the form of DNA, and composing new tunes out of natural DNA sequences with a new set of codons
We also attended online CCiC, the largest event for iGEMers in China, in late August. Our team presented a video to introduce our project, and listened to the suggestions of the judges and fellow iGEMers.
It is a special year for us. Because of the pandemic, most universities had to stop students returning to campus during the spring semester. Nonetheless, all the competitors have found their ways to carry out the experiments and made steady progress.
Moreover, we established connections with the team from SZU, and took part in their education program by introducing our project on their brochure of synthetic biology.