Team:SEHS-China/Education
Abstract
In order to inspire a new thought of synthetic biology into students in our school and make synthetic biology experiments possible, our team has done our education program by three stages. It includes group discussion, campus education and long-term activities.
Group Discussion
We gathered our friends together to get others’ perspective towards synthetic biology and feedback of our program.
Campus Education
After hearing our friends’ views of synthetic biology, we decided to provided introductory lesson to students.
Long-term Activities
We compile a booklet about syn-biology devices and basic experiments. To arouse the students’ interests and gain more knowledge of syn-biology, our teammates all devoted in teaching and hold interesting activities. .Part 1 group discussion--FIND TRUE VIEWS!
“What Is Syn-bio Like In Your Heart?” SEHS-China invited our friends to discuss this topic in classroom. We simply introduce syn-bio to them by explain the definition and draw some pictures of basic concept and devices on the blackboard. Then some team members shared their experience in the lab, such as an unexpected discovery, failure of experiments over and over again, and happiness of success. Our friends talked and discussed a lot, giving us many useful suggestions and expressing their attitude to syn-bio. After that, we analyzed their answers to our questions. Some think syn-bio is mysterious, which we can not learn much in high school. Others think syn-bio has little impact to our daily life because it seems like a high-technology subject. Even one of our friend think doing experiments in lab all day long is boring.
Part 2 campus education--CHANGE THEIR MIND!
Is synthetic biology boring? Is it far from our daily life? Definitely not!!! SEHS-China began to show syn-bio to more and more people. Based on what our friends said in group discussion, we paid more attention to several focus in our presentations for campus education. To give more comprehensive concept of syn-bio, speakers started with the beginning of syn-bio. We talked about the first synthetic biology experiment, which was successfully finished by Stanley Cohen and Herbert Wayne Boyer. After that, we covered some the most important milestones of syn-bio, like the first artificial virus made in 2002 and the famous Human Genome Project from 1990. Moreover, we mentioned the unfinished project of synthesized yeast genome. Speakers focus better on daily examples of syn-bio. For example, many students were interested in the topic of nata de coco. They thought the nata de coco is made of artificial food glue or other chemical products. However, to their surprise, nata de coco is the fermentation product of a kind of microorganisms, acetobacter xylinium. Our campus education successfully interest much more students about syn-bio. They sent us over one hundred letters to express their passion. These really encourage us to start our Part 3 as soon as possible.
Part 3 long term activities--LET US ENJOY SYN-BIO!
Research and booklet
We know our school only has some basic experiment devices. So our teammates went to the school laboratory and recorded which devices can be used to do some experiments. Based on our record, we made a booklet to guide students to do experiments. Students are divided into groups. We gave out our booklets for each group.
DNA Extraction Experiment
We invited students from Grade 10, Grade 11 and Grade 12 to the school laboratory to do the DNA extraction experiment. They followed our booklet and finished the experiment.
Model lessons
We use big model of cells and DNA structure to explain the central dogma. Everyone had strong passion and interest. By taking part in making the DNA structure model, students got better understanding of DNA. To help students better understand the central dogma, we drew the chart on the blackboard. This lesson is vital for students because a deep understanding of central dogma is a base of syn-bio.
Future
SEHS-China will continue to introduce syn-bio and lead more schoolmates and public to our lessons and laboratory. We will also cooperate with Biology club in our school and provide more chances for students to experience syn-bio in person. We also got more suggestions from students who major in syn-bio and biology. SEHS-China will sincerely invite them to cooperate with us in our later education programs.