Team:NCKU Tainan/Education
Overview
Since the very first beginning, we have realized that it is crucial to broaden the public awareness and to convey correct information of synthetic biology and glaucoma. Over time, the public has had a rejection to synthetic biology with the controversies surrounding this emerging science. At the same time, glaucoma is known as a silent killer of vision, the public is often unaware of its presence and when there is a noticeable vision loss, it's already too late. This emphasizes the need of health education for preventing blindness due to glaucoma. Moreover, these issues occured for a long time because of the public’s limited access to both synthetic biology and glaucoma. That’s why we wanted to hold a series of educational events using various approaches to reach out and engage with many different members of the community to understand synthetic biology and glaucoma.
The most common educational method is the conventional education method, such as lectures which are teacher-centered. This method has proven to be effective for presenting information in a quick manner, sharing information that is not easily found and teaching learners who learn best by listening. However, in many cases, not all learners learn best by listening and not all learners learn in the same impersonal way implying that conventional education has its own limitations. Hence, we came up with non-conventional educational methods in order to broaden our scope of impact. Especially in this pandemic era, the internet is something we cannot live without. We decided to take advantage of this and bring our educational materials online.
Furthermore, as we are focusing on glaucoma, we thought of how the five senses have such a significant impact on our lives. Thus, we incorporated five senses to our education as sensory stimulation can increase the effectiveness of learning. Through social media, we made infographics to stimulate the sense of sight, podcast to stimulate the sense of hearing, and even videos to stimulate both senses. More than that, we organized a special live-action role-playing event to simulate blindness, allowing them to experience having to only rely on their other senses such as taste, touch and hearing. This event also allowed us to raise the awareness of blindness.
Education
" Education must be an equal opportunity for all. - Lailah Gifty Akita ,,
While developing Eye kNOw and Eye Screen, we faced a much more challenging problem- most people simply don't know glaucoma. To benefit the whole society, we realized we had a responsibility to let the public know about glaucoma in the first place. To ensure that everyone knows about glaucoma, education is essential. We aimed to educate people of all ages to raise society’s awareness of glaucoma as well as synthetic biology. In our education we experimented using both conventional and non-conventional educational methods.
Conventional educational methods
As we all know, the conventional educational method involves teachers teaching students in classes, allowing them to have a face to face interaction and in-class active learning session. In our conventional education, we aimed to educate children, adolescents, and elderly. We didn’t want different age groups to prevent us from sharing glaucoma and synthetic biology. Therefore, we need to adjust our method of teaching according to their age and knowledge.
Read for Love Summer Camp
The Read for Love Summer Camp was held jointly by NCKU Library and the Saint Island Charity Foundation for elementary students to record stories for the visually impaired. With the help of one of our PIs, Dr. Han-Qing Wang, we took this opportunity to introduce synthetic biology and glaucoma to the children. Teaching children such complicated topics is not as easy as we thought it would be. Considering that they were only elementary students, we added a lot of animations to our PowerPoint slides to grab hold of their attention and make it easier for them to imagine the mechanism of glaucoma. We also had to simplify our explanations using various ways, including not using any scientific terms while explaining the structure of the eye. Additionally, we also talked about the symptoms of glaucoma and how to prevent them. By raising glaucoma awareness among young children from an early age, we can begin cultivating a generation that understands glaucoma's seriousness.
Interestingly, we were also challenged to simulate the life of the blind. We were given a chance to listen, draw, eat, walk, and experience Braille in the dark. This allowed us to interact more with the children. We also learned that the "learning through play" method offers a meaningful and unique way of education from this activity. Not only did this experience allow us to understand more about the world of the visually impaired, but it also gave us the idea for our special event called Into the Darkness.
Tainan First Senior High School
We visited the best high school in Tainan, Tainan First Senior High School's scientific research club. First, we introduced iGEM and synthetic biology. Then, we talked about several past iGEM projects for them to understand the application of synthetic biology in the real world. After that, we divided them into groups of five or six students for a brainstorming session about how to solve synthetic biology problems. Each of the groups had one iGEM member to guide them through brainstorming. We asked about what problem they want to solve, then began discussing the cause of that problem and how we can use synthetic biology to solve it. Then, we asked them to share their ideas. It was their first time learning about the applications of gene editing. However, they were able to come up with countless marvelous ideas.
After that, we introduced our project and taught them the importance of glaucoma. However, we discovered that their basic knowledge of biology was not strong enough. We then tried to simplify the eye structure's explanation as much as possible to ensure that they understood. From this experience, we learned that we always need to think of our audience's background knowledge, regardless of their education level. Moreover, we also created a simple DIY perimeter to measure their peripheral vision. The students were very excited and enthusiastic about being able to create something useful with their own hands. We hope to inspire them to be the next generation of iGEMers, or the next generation of world-changers through this fantastic experience.
Check out this video to know more about how we conducted our education in TNFSH and their feedback!
Also, take a look at the tutorial video for the DIY perimeter!
Also watch this tutorial video of the DIY perimeter!
The Tainan Young Men’s Christian Association
As the elderly are at a higher risk for glaucoma, we were grateful to have the opportunity to visit the YMCA, where we talked about synthetic biology and glaucoma. However, when preparing for this event, we faced an interesting problem - a language barrier. In Taiwan, especially here in Tainan, the older generation tends to communicate in the Taiwanese language, and most of them can't speak or understand Mandarin. The younger generation, on the other hand, rarely communicates in Taiwanese. Yet, to be able to engage with the elderly, we had to communicate using the Taiwanese language. It was a challenge and a new experience for us. Since we were going to talk about glaucoma, we had to mention some medical terms; so, we had to search for the Taiwanese translation and memorize them. We also tried our best to ensure that the elderly understood us.
During this event, we talked about preventing glaucoma and the correct way to take care of their eyes. Besides that, we had a little activity to let them experience blindness. We asked some of the elderly to wear a blindfold, then draw something with the non-blindfolded elderly's guidance. We hoped this would let them understand the importance of vision and know how to assist the visually impaired.
From these activities, we created a guide book showing the different ways used to educate people of different backgrounds in hopes to inspire other teams to include people of various backgrounds in their education plans.
course guide
Non-conventional educational methods
In this technological era, we can't deny the impact of social media in our daily lives. There are many social media platforms that allow us to connect with everyone, allowing us to see what is happening in the world. We knew that using only conventional educational methods cannot allow us to reach a global audience. On the contrary, technology is adding to numerous ways for us to communicate and engage with the world, as there are constantly new ways to reach out to people and grab their attention. We decided to use social media as social media is proven to be a fast and easy tool for sharing knowledge. It is able to provide a significant impact by reaching new audiences across the globe, enabling us to raise global awareness of synthetic biology and glaucoma.
Glaucoma Awareness Week (June 29 – July 5)
According to Glaucoma UK, June 29 - July 5, 2020, was glaucoma awareness week. As a team working on glaucoma treatment, we realized we had this responsibility to share about glaucoma. Thus, we prepared seven posts related to glaucoma, one for each day of glaucoma awareness week. Since visual content is simply more engaging to the average social media user, we decided to design simple infographics for this purpose. These were then posted on our official Instagram and Facebook accounts.
The Something Podcast
Podcasts are one new outlet that offers a fantastic way to communicate with our audiences. Podcasts are on the rise in popularity and are predicted to continue to expand as time goes on. Even the most mundane subjects can turn podcasts into fascinating learning opportunities that people want to know more about. People are used to conversing with each other, and a podcast is very much like a chat you're listening to. Especially in this pandemic era, where everyone is expected to isolate themselves, listening to a podcast can help simulate a conversation. In addition, most podcasts introduce to their content an aspect of storytelling, which makes it even more fun to listen to. Therefore, we decided to launch our own podcast, called ‘The Something Podcast’. The Something Podcast has six episodes in total, and each episode was released weekly every Saturday morning starting from September.
When we were deciding on the topics for each episode, we wanted the listeners to understand iGEM completely. That's why The Something Podcast was separated into three main sections. The first section (episode 1-3) is all about iGEM. We briefly introduced synthetic biology and talked about iGEM, including the sub-teams and what their role is. We also introduced our project and how we came up with Eye kNOw. Next, in the second section (episode 4 and 5), we talked more about the details of synthetic biology and glaucoma with the experts, which are our PIs. And in the last episode, we did a review of our podcast. We talked about what problems we faced and the effectiveness of our podcast as an education platform.
More than that, through inviting our amazing guests previous NCKU iGEMer, our members, and PIs, to share their experiences, we are able to let our listeners understand more about iGEM - not just about what iGEM is as a competition, but also how iGEM can affect our lives.
Synthetic Biology in 5 Levels
While brainstorming for ideas on how to effectively explain hard topics like synthetic biology to everyone in terms they can understand, we came across the ‘5 levels’ video series by WIRED on Youtube. In their series, an expert scientist explained a high-level subject in five different layers of complexity - first to a child, then a teenager, then an undergrad student, a grad student, and finally a colleague.
Taking inspiration from this series, we decided to come up with our own 5 levels video to talk about synthetic biology in five different layers of complexity - to a middle school student, a high school student, a college student, a grad student and finally a professor.
Engagement
“ Alone, we can do so little; Together, we can do so much. - Helen Keller ,,
Apart from education, having a wide range of relationships with society is a critical aspect to consider. As we develop Eye kNOw and Eye Screen, we want to connect with more people and share what we have done with synthetic biology. More than that, by engaging with different members of society, we can get feedback that helps us to develop better treatment for people who suffer from glaucoma.
Undergraduate Research Day
This year, it was the second time National Cheng Kung University held this event. Encouraging students to develop their research potential, we were honored to be a part of this big event. We talked about iGEM, synthetic biology, then our project, Eye kNOw. After that, there was a QA section. We were asked, as a multidisciplinary team, how did we come up with our project, and why did we choose glaucoma as our project. Then, we had a chance to promote our upcoming special event, Into the Darkness. Undergraduate Research Day definitely increased college student's interest in iGEM. After our presentation, numerous people contacted us to ask about iGEM. We hope to inspire them to develop themselves in academic research.
NCKU Club Festival
Another new academic year, another club festival. NCKU club festival is an annual event where all the clubs association in NCKU will introduce and promote their club to the students, especially the freshmen. iGEM NCKU Tainan participated in this event, and we had our own stall, where we introduced ourselves and our project this year. Then, we also approached them directly and roamed around the area, passing flyers. At the same time, we promoted our upcoming events, which were the final topic presentation and contact lens recycling movement. For contact lens recycling, we wanted to collect many ideas from the students. Thus, we also asked them how to recycle the contact lens? We got many creative ideas, such as melting the contact lens, then pouring it into a mold, or making the contact lens into art. From this event, we received a lot of positive feedback regarding our project and many people contacted us asking about iGEM.
iGEM Taiwan Meet-up Conference
Despite the pandemic, we were thankful that we were still able to join the iGEM Taiwan Meet-up conference. Held by National Chung Hsing University in Tai Chung, this two days event allowed the Taiwanese iGEM teams to meet each other and shared about their project through the presentation and the poster session. After the presentation, there was a QA session, thus, we could obtain a lot of feedback from the teachers and other students regarding our project. We also learned to improve our presentation style and the way to answer the questions. More than that, we also got to know each of their superb projects, communicate with each other. Simultaneously, we took this opportunity to promote our partnership event, "I've Gotta PhD" with iGEM CSMU Taiwan.
Topic Presentation
Before we voted for Eye kNOw as our final project, we had a topic presentation. After our brainstorming, we were separated into three groups to propose their topics, which were, targeting iron as a treatment for cellulitis, sense plant's nitrogen status to solve over-fertilization, and expressing nitric oxide as a treatment for glaucoma. We then presented our topics to the teachers and the students. Next, they voted for which topics interested them most and wrote us a review. Each group had a 20 minutes presentation and 10 minutes of QA session. It allowed us to find the problems in our projects and improve them before deciding on our final project.
NCKU President Meet-up
We were honored to have lunch with the president of NCKU, Dr. Huey-Jen Jenny Su. She has been very supportive of iGEM NCKU Tainan since the first day. We introduced ourselves and what we want to achieve for the competition. The president gave us a lot of encouragement and valuable advice, such as how to improve as a team. We are thankful for the massive support from the school.
GenScript-MolecularCloud
GenScript is a global leading biotech company and has been supporting iGEM since 2009. This year, they offer a grant for GenScript products and services through the MolecularCloud platform. By joining this, we got a chance to do an Instagram live and was interviewed by MolecularCloud. We talked about the mechanism of our project, how did COVID-19 affect our lab work and raise glaucoma awareness. This live interview was a new experience for us.
Online Meetups
Due to COVID-19, everything is online, and there are many online meetups events held by numerous iGEM teams. Through this method, we were able to know other iGEM teams worldwide. We joined these meetups:
1. 2nd Annual iGEM Meetup – Asia by iGEM iBowu China (August 15)
2. iGEMeetParis - Worldwide Virtual Meetup hosted by Parisian teams by iGEM IONIS Paris, iGEM Sorbonne, iGEM Paris Saclay, iGEM Evry, iGEM Paris Bettencourt (September 5-6)
3. cGEM (Canadian Genetically Engineered Machine) Conference by Amy Yeung, Jehoshua Sharma, Luana Langlois (former iGEM team presidents from Toronto, Guelph, and Western, respectively) (October 3-4)
Most of the meetups were about holding a pitch presentation about each of the team's projects, allowing us to find some issues in our project that we have never thought of before, such as how to ensure that the bacteria's metabolic products won't harm our eyes? Other than the presentation, there are also some cool events, such as workshops and some social events. Through these social events, we had a lovely time communicating with other iGEMers.
iGEM NCKU 2020 Special Event
Into the Darkness
This year, we wanted to make an event to raise awareness about blindness, and that’s when we discovered about dining in the dark, a culinary experience where people do not see the food that they are eating as it takes place in a dark restaurant. From dining in the dark, we planned to make sensory engaging activities in the dark, to let the players experience the life of the visually impaired. However, just simply a sensory engaging event, won’t attract many college students. So, to solve this problem, we managed to combine it with the live-action role-playing, or better known as LARP, its a form of role-playing games where the participants portray their characters. With an intriguing storyline and sensational hints, we are very proud to launch our very first ever LARP game, Into the Darkness.
Introducing Into the Darkness
“Dr. X’s biological weapon research was successful! Everyone gathered in the laboratory to get a glimpse of the results. Suddenly, the biological weapon containing the APEX virus was destroyed! It will cause blindness immediately to anyone that is exposed to it. Can you find the antidote to restore your eyesight? And find out who destroyed the weapon?”
Into the Darkness used two rooms, the conference room and Dr. X's laboratory. And consist of 3 stages, with a total playtime of 60 minutes. The first stage is around 18 minutes and the second stage is 35 minutes, and the last stage of 7 minutes.
Stage 1: Find the antidote
The Players will first choose or draw their characters, then gather in the conference room and read about their character's guide to understand their characters, and they are allowed to communicate with other characters. After that, we will play the bomb sound effect, indicating that the weapon was destroyed, here the lights will be turned off, making the whole room dark, pointing that the players lost their eyesight because of the virus. To restore their eyesight, the players must find the keys hanging on the wall, there are 4 keys in total. After obtaining the 4 keys, they can open the box beside the table. However, inside the box, there are packages of snacks and a locked box storing the antidote. To open the box, the players must eat the packages of snacks with different flavors. The code for the key is according to the number of packages, sour-sweet-spicy-salty. After breaking the code, the players will regain their eyesight and move to the second stage.
Stage 2: Find the hints
All of the hints are located in Dr. X's laboratory. But, before searching for the hints, players must stop the ventilation system and prevent the virus from spreading out of the lab. To stop it they have to enter the password into the laptop, which has the DNA base pair as the question. After solving the problem, players are allowed to search for the hints. Players are also allowed to hide the hints that might disadvantage them. The hints are everywhere in the room.
Stage 3: Find the culprit
After finding the hints, the players will go back to the conference room and discuss who might be the culprit with the hints they founded. After that, we ask each player to vote for 2 people who they think might be the culprit, then they are allowed to defend themselves. Next, the players voted between both of them for the final culprit.
