Team:XHD-Wuhan-China/Education
Education
The results of social survey show that most of the citizens have little knowledge of synthetic biology, iGEM competition and the role of phosphate solubilizing microorganisms. In order to change this situation, we designed a popular science education activity for high school students, college students and the public. And we also use WeChat to carry out the education and publicity activities of synthetic biology.
Propaganda at College of Science of Huazhong Agricultural University
Propaganda at Wuhan Britain-China School
We organized a public propaganda at Wuhan Britain-China School.
We have briefly explained synthetic biology and iGEM firstly. Then we introduced our projects. The students have acquired a lot of knowledge about iGEM and synthetic biology. Through this propaganda, we have made them know that synthetic biology was not only in the laboratory and far away from us. It was closely linked to our life and could be used to solve many problems in our life, which was we are doing. Even if we are high school students, we can study and use the knowledge of synthetic biology. There are platforms like iGEM, offering the chances for us. Then, by introducing our program contents, we show them a way to use synthetic biology to solve some problems happened in society. We believe this would not only present our idea and perspective, but also remind them that knowledge should be used in benefiting mankind. Though this is a small-scale propaganda, we believe we have held a meaningful education activity.
Propaganda at Touma International Speech Club
On Saturday, September 26, 2020, our team went to the Touma International Speech Club together and participated in the speech event that afternoon with them. During this time, we showed them our team’s overall project, which made them better than our team’s project. With a general understanding, because synthetic biology is a relatively cutting-edge subject, most people in the society have never touched or even heard of synthetic biology. After our humorous speech format and the science popularization of extracurricular videos, most of the audience are right I have a certain understanding of synthetic biology and affirmed and supported our project.
In this event, we first introduced the general content of the project to the audience in a simple way, and accepted the response seriously, answered your questions, and discussed the loopholes and deficiencies of the project with researchers in related fields. After that, we discussed and summarized the opinions of the audience, which provided a basis for promoting the later operation of the project.
In addition, we also explained the general knowledge of synthetic biology to the public in the second half of the event, and showed you the charm of synthetic biology in a form that is easy for the public to understand, such as animation. Everyone also commented on this event. Gao, and said that he has gained a lot from it.
Propaganda online
WeChat is the most popular social software in China, like Twitter in USA. Due to this reason, we created our own WeChat Official account named “IGEM2020”. We used this resource to share more information about our topic and the progress of our project to our community.
We uploaded a total of seven tweets to our Wechat Official Account during June and September, including topics such as:
1. Ethical considerations related to biology
2. News of the biosafety incident
3. Molecular cloning
4. The Negotiator(the article from WHU-China )
5. Project promotion video
In the early advertising period, we introduced the basic knowledge of Biology and the news about Synthetic biology to our followers, so these systematic knowledge could help them grasp our topics and learn about how these visual information connects with their daily life,
After the basic introduction, we advanced our tweets by adding more intriguing images and animations in our article, transmitting other team’s tweets and distinguishing the theories of synthetic biology and basic biology. In all these cases, we introduced more complicated information to the public in an interesting way and also cooperated with other team to get some suggestions from the experienced team.
Finally, we posted our project promotion video in our tweet. And we let every follower who focus on our process of project believe in our team and understand our project more clearly.
(The QR code of our Wechat Official Account along with our team logo)
