Team:Worldshaper-Wuhan/Education
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Introduction
Public education
Lecture
Social-media
Summary
Science Communication
Introduction
Through our survey we found that the majority of the general public lack common knowledge about synthetic biology. Among the middle school students, the proportion who have heard of iGEM is 19.92%, which is low. Therefore, we conclude that public education about synthetic biology and iGEM is greatly needed. Through the questionnaire results, we also found that the public has a limited understanding of breast cancer and its prevention. Therefore, we decided to wage information campaigns to draw public attention to breast cancer, including self-check methods and precaution measures. Our promotional content focuses on synthetic biology, iGEM and breast cancer precaution. Our audiences are mainly high school students and the general public. In order to achieve a better publicity effect, we decided to use a brochure as the main form of publicity. In addition, we hand out commemorative badges to our listeners to as a constant reminder for them to engage in healthier living styles.
Fig.1 our materials for science communications: a. Poster; b. leaflets; c. badge; d. team banner.
For our public education activaties, we have prepared abundant information, brochures(fig.1b), posters(fig.1a), as well as our uniform, badge(fig.1c) and team banner(fig.1d). Our brochure was divided into sections: tips for preventing breast cancer, synthetic biology, literature review, and introduction of iGEM. Our badge design is a combination of the earth, pink ribbons, gear and side belt. Because the natural resources support all the lives on this planet, the earth not only represents a mother figure, but also represents breast cancer patients worldwide. The pink ribbon represents the significance of attention for breast cancer; The gear indicates that application of bioengineering can help women and breast cancer patients. The edge of the logo using the goldish color has more than aesthetic meaning – it represents light and hope. We include our meaningful badge logo on our team uniforms so that more people can notice us and our activities.
Introduction of Synthetic Biology and iGEM in high school
At the Affiliated Middle School of Jiangxi Normal University, our team member Jinting Cao introduced the knowledge of iGEM synthetic biology and PCR to the students. The content mainly includes the basic definition and application of synthetic biology, the basic definition of PCR, technical principles, working principles and reaction characteristics, as well as some content about gene splicing. At first, students did not have a good understanding. To help them understand, After we combined the cartoon videos and played related documentaries, we got a good response. In general, the presentation went smoothly. During the competition season,, our team went to Sannew school to make a pubic speech about transgenosis. we chose this topic because our target audiences are mostly students and parents. A large percentage of this group may not understand the basic knowledge of synthetic biology. Transgenesis is a small chunk of synthetic biology that people may have heard of in daily lives. It is also a quite interesting and controversial topic because... The public speech started with the question - “can mankind become god someday and be capable of creating new organisms as we please?” Then the definitions of synthetic biology and transgenesis were explained. After this part, we introduced briefly the history of transgenesis. Examples of transgenesis were mentioned when we listed the advantages and disadvantages of transgenesis. This presentation helped our audience to have an objective understanding of transgenesis, learn a few examples of genetically modified food that may not be good for health, and also have a greater interest in synthetic biology.
Phtotos1/2 Introduction of Synthetic Biology and iGEM in The Attached Middle School To Jiangxi Normal University (Ieft) and Sannew School(right)
Public education in Wuhan
In August 2020, our team conducted two offline publicity activities in Wuhan. On August 2, 2020, we distributed leaflets in the park near the Yangtze River Bridge in Wuhan. At the start of the activity was not smooth, because not everyone had time talking to us. However, thanks to a local policeman’s suggestion, we moved to a night market with more people. It was also the first time that we had carried out activities on a street like this one. At the beginning, our group leader Jiayi Wu set a great example, even though sometimes we got rejection. No matter how frustrated we felt, we would keep on trying. After repeated readjustments, we achieved good results. In this process, we are also very honored to have a Wuhan sanitation worker as our audience.
Photo3/4/5/6 August 2 Public education besides Yangtze River in Wuhan
On August 12, 2020, we also conducted Street interviews in Han street of Chuhe River, asking people some simple questions about breast cancer, and investigating people's basic understanding of breast cancer. During the interview, we happened to interview patients with breast hyperplasia. she told us about her experience and gave us some encouragement. Through street interviews and publicity, we realized that people generally don't know about breast cancer, not to mention self-check methods and prevention measures. we hope that, with our publicity, more people could be exposed to breast cancer information and synthetic biology. We successfully completed two offline publicity campaigns. During the two activities, we issued nearly 500 leaflets, which popularized the knowledge of breast cancer to more people.
Photo6/7/8/9 August 12 Street interview in Wuhan
(now, since then, we carried out the second campaign again, this time we used the street interviews, more understanding to the science of the impression of the breast cancer is more convenient for people the importance of the prevention of breast cancer, Especially for women. Then coming behind, we also did relate several online activities, aggie igem team and China team is also the corresponding cooperation, our main team opened two times online conference, meeting for the first time we know each team of the project, mainly for the later after we know the decision in mathematical modeling, the team compared to our high school students more mature team, mainly in terms of mathematical modeling we were in the form of a mentor.）
Public Education in Hangzhou Science and Technology Exhibition
We are very honored to receive an invitation from Hangzhou government for Science and Technology Exhibition. On August 23, we attended the opening ceremony exhibition of Science and Technology Week. My teammate Peng Yunhan and I distributed pamphlets to visitors attending the exhibition. This pamphlet was designed by our team and contains knowledge of iGEM and synthetic biology as well as tips on how to prevent and self-check breast cancer. Using fun games as ice-breaking, we introduced them some interesting science knowledge, and told them some precautions for cancers. Some of our audience acknowledge that it was the first time that they learned that not only women will suffer from breast cancer. Because the scale of this science exhibition, we made our exhibition content suitable for a great variety of people, thus the participants would not feel too boring after listening. This made it easy for us to introduce the theme of our project - using synthetic biology to diagnose or treat breast cancer, so that more people can understand the purpose of our project. Finally, in order to achieve a better effect of our science communication, we distributed our team badges to everyone.
Photo11/12/13/14 Public education in Hangzhou Science and Technology Exhibition
In conclusion, this science and technology exhibition has made a very good popularization of synthetic biology and igem, and also provided participants with the knowledge of breast self-check and prevention, which has achieved satisfactory results. In conclusion, this Science and Technology Exhibition offers a great platform for us to introduce synthetic biology and iGEM competition to the general public. We sincerely hope our effort raised awareness of breast cancer among the audience.
Sharing Lecture via online meetup
We had two virtual Meetups in total. the first was an online meeting with the IGEM team of HZAU-China (Huangzhong Agricultural University). Aiming to establish cooperation with them, we shared our project ideas, science communication plans and so on. Our virtual meetup went very well. Similarly, our online meetup with with NJU-China（Nanjing university） team benefits us a lot. As a high school team, our capacity on modeling is limited, but HZAU-China team instructed us step by step. We are very grateful for their patience and help.
Fig.2 Sharing Lecture via online meetup
Social-media platform
Since January 2020, our team WSWH has been writing articles on self-media platform about the iGEM competition, synthetic biology, the laboratory examination of COVID-19, and early diagnosis of breast cancer. Our articles have caught thousands of people’s attention, and many of the readers left messages in the comment section, expressing their support to what we are doing right now, inquiring further information about our project, or giving advice for possible improvements. We were thrilled to have recieved those comments and we immediately gave response to our readers, too. In conclusion, it has been an exotic experience for all of us; we plan to keep sending articles to this platform after the competition, and we are looking forward to more interactions with our readers in the future.
Fig.3 Our Social media articles
Summary
In conclusion, by reaching out to our audience---high school students and anyone with curiosity about synthetic biology, by collaborating with our friend teams (although due to safety reasons, our collaboration activities were restricted to online), we hope that our project will continue to have positive influence on the society where we are living in, to inspire curiosity and creativity, to create more possibilities.