Education
Cheng-He Confucian Academic Center
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." ~Albert Einstein
Cheng-He Confucian Academic Center is a religious education center devoted to education in the I-Kuan Tao, a Chinese salvationist religion in Taiwan. Chances to learn about science are quite rare in that setting. However, we wished to break the gap between science and religion, helping students in a religious education center to overcome the limitations of the study location and have the opportunity to learn science. Thus, we shared our idea with Cheng-He Confucian Academic Center and were offered a chance to introduce science to the children.
We were fully aware that it’s impossible to grasp lots of scientific knowledge in one class, especially in a situation where they have little contact with science. Thus, we designed the lessons with hand-on activities, trying to spark children’s interest about science in a fun and interactive way.
Spatially, we decided to let the children sit around us instead of sitting on chairs as we wanted them to feel relaxed and free. In our lesson plan, as the children we taught were from 4 years old to 14 years old, we decided to carry out the lesson in a story-telling way with small games and also hands-on activities.
We started the lesson with an introduction to genes, as they are an important part of the human body and also the basis of synthetic biology. We introduced DNA by explaining the structure and how it plays its roles in the human body. To disseminate the knowledge in an easy to understand way, we described it as a blueprint of the human body with a structure like a ladder. We explained the complementary pairing of the four nitrogenous bases. To consolidate this concept, they constructed their own DNA using adhesive tape and straws of four different colors. The adhesive tape represented the backbone of DNA and each color straw represented a nitrogenous base, so they had to combine them in the right way based on the complementarity rule.
We also introduced the concept of genotype and phenotype and how dominant and recessive genes influenced human phenotypes. We tried to explain to them in a more interactive way using the analogy of the dominant gene as an elder brother with the recessive gene as a younger brother. The elder brother who is more aggressive always bullies the younger brother, which results in expression of only the dominant gene most of the time. As most of them had siblings, they could easily understand and remember this concept.
We also introduced gel electrophoresis by describing it as a camera for genes that can show the differences between genes. When teaching them how DNA migrates towards the positive electrode, we used an analogy that larger strands DNA were bulky so they run slower while smaller strands could run faster. Lastly, we explained the concept of BioBricks in a simple manner by asking them to draw a dinosaur based on the features we provided. They chose their favorite features, and arranged them in the ‘plasmid’ we had prepared, so that the ‘plasmid’ would ‘express’ the features of the dinosaur they wanted!
We found the lecture a huge success as they showed great interest in science, kept asking questions during the lesson, and could clearly remember the contents we taught when we asked questions at the end. We were impressed by their enthusiasm as it demonstrated that our attempt was right and effective.
However, we knew that only one three-hour lesson was definitely not enough for enduring understanding and to get a taste for science, so we went there a second time.
We shared a knowledge of viruses during the second lesson. We introduced the structure of different viruses, followed by a hands-on activity of making a model of a bacteriophage. As with the children’s storybook, we discussed the characteristic of viruses, transmission routes and also ways to prevent dengue infection. We also emphasized the importance of practicing good hygiene.
Through this meaningful event, we successfully reached out to a younger community to share our passion about biology and inspire them to step into the world of science. We hope that this inspiration would be passed on to more and more people by our efforts.
Educational Tool
Children’s storybook
To invite children to step into the world of biology, a children’s storybook with attractive illustrations may be a feasible way! We started from a story about viruses in response to the COVID-19 trend. The main character, Tom is wondering why everyone is wearing mask and keeping social distance. Thorough mother’s introduction, Tom knows that the structure of viruses, routes of transmission and also ways to prevent virus infections. Our storybook also provided an engaging way for children to be aware of good hygiene practices.
To ensure our materials fit with children’s comprehension and thinking abilities, we consulted with Dr. Shih-Yuan Liang, who received her PhD from Vanderbilt University, Department Of Hearing and Speech Sciences.
She advised us to convey the knowledge by using stories of things that happen in daily life, and also use metaphors and analogies to improve understanding. In accordance with her suggestions, we conceived and compiled the story and asked for help from CSMU Taiwan to illustrate the storybook.
We used this storybook as an education tool at Cheng-He Confucian Academic Center and also Mingyang High School. Besides, to reach to a bigger audience, we collaborated with Team iGEM IISER to translate the storybook into Hindi, which is the fourth most-spoken language in the world.
We hope that by creating this storybook, we could improve children’s knowledge about viruses and also raise their curiosity about science!
Media
Podcast
In 2020, podcasts of audio digital media have gone viral in Taiwan. Based on the data shown by Google Trend, the Google search term “Podcasts” in Taiwan appeared to grow with a growth rate of 84%. It is now all the rage and has become a new favorite in the media industry. From the industry survey report done by a local podcast hosting platform known as SoundOn, 870 podcast programs sprouted up in the first half year of 2020, followed by 100 new programs established every month.
Based on this data, we thought a podcast would have a great potential as a platform to reach out to a large group of people. Thus, we decided to establish a podcast program in Chinese to tell about synthetic biology.
First, we tried to figure out what type of community we were going to focus on. Based on the statistical analysis, we found out that 60% of audiences in Taiwan range from 23 years old to 32 years old while 23% are from 33 years old to 42 years old. Most of them (94%) have a bachelor’s degree. 49% of the audiences aim to upgrade knowledge in a professional field while 69% prefer educational programs.
From this information, we targeted young and middle-aged adults. We assumed that our educational podcast could get attentions and reach people who have little connection with science.
We published one program every two weeks. We spent lots of time and effort to interpret the knowledge in an intelligible way while writing the scripts and recording. We used a variety of examples and analogies to visualize the contents, hoping that audiences without a science background could easily understand the knowledge we shared.
We shared the information about our podcast on social media. According to the analysis data from SoundOn, 73% of audiences will share their favorite program with others while 64% will search for related information after listening to a podcast. Thus we believed that those would help us to reach more people.
Our program has reach 395 downloads now, with audiences from the United States, China and Taiwan.
The applications of synthetic biology will spread widely and the relevance to human daily lives will increase in the future. Thus, we believe that our education about synthetic biology has great potential to reach to a community eager to gain new knowledge.
Our podcast is available at Spotify, SoundOn, Apple Podcast and Google Podcasts.
- Episode 00: Origin of our program
- Episode 01: Brief introduction to synthetic biology
- Episode 02: Central dogma (1)
- Episode 03: Central dogma (2)
- Episode 04: Special episode - Dengue fever information in Taiwanese Hokkien
- Episode 05: Application of synthetic biology in medical field
Synthetic biology is a new realm of science which combines biology, engineering, modelling, etc. Why is it important to know more about this knowledge? How can this new branch of science connect with human daily lives? Let’s get the answers in this episode!
What is a BioBrick? Is synthetic biology genetic modification? Is synthetic biology far away from our daily lives? We will clarify the relationship between synthetic biology and genetic modification and show how useful this multidisciplinary area of research is in the world today.
Central dogma is the core concept of synthetic biology. We will tell about the relationships between DNA, RNA and protein. And most importantly, how the central dogma is important to humans.
Transcription and translation are the keys to transmission of genetic codes. In this episode, we will tell about the processes which turns DNA into proteins.
Do you know that CCU_Taiwan is working on dengue fever this year?
To let more people aware about the severity of dengue in Taiwan, we collaborated with a senior citizen service center to disseminate the knowledge about dengue in Taiwanese Hokkien.
The world is affected by Coronavirus in 2020 and each country is engaging in developing of vaccines, especially DNA vaccines. In this episode, we will tell you how synthetic biology can be used in medical field and makes changes to medical system!
