We are a bunch of people who love synthetic biology and iGEM. We hope to create a mass base for the development of synthetic biology. Therefore, we have carried out different forms of education for children, middle school students, college students and the public according to different ages. The aim is to let different basic populations, through explanation and education, understand the meaning of iGEM and synthetic biology, understanding its applications in medicine, agriculture, materials, the environment and energy. Triggering their interests about synthetic biology in life.
In the early days of children understanding the world, they will be interested in the animals and plants, biological phenomena around them. They fully observe and fully perceive the nature, so they often ask a lot of " Why?” To satisfy the children's curiosity and stimulate their creativity, we recruited volunteers in cooperation with the Youth Volunteers Association of Beijing Institute of Technology. We jointly designed a picture book, "I Have, a Problem," featuring synthetic biology, hoping to solve most of children's questions.
In the picture book, we have designed five themes: The Origin of the Human Being, The Human Immune System, The Green Earth on Earth, The Smog and Dust Storm, and How Life Has Developed from Cells to Individuals. Among the "Human Origin" topic, we map how humans evolved from ape man for thousands of years to now us and how we get these evolution basis —— fossils. The "Human Immune System" topic, we map the processes of humoral and cellular immunity. To facilitate understanding, we compare antibodies to artillery shells, and simile B cells and T cells to police officers. On "Green on Earth," we show how forests, known as the lungs of the Earth, work and purify the air through photosynthesis. Anticipating that children can establish an awareness of protecting the forest. On the special "Smog and Dust Storm" topic, we draw the formation mechanism of two weather harmful to our health. How should we protect ourselves from illness in this weather, and advocate low-carbon travel for children. In the topic "How Life develops from cells into individuals", we map the process of gradually dividing fertilized cells into human bodies, giving children a preliminary understanding of our production, rather than staying at "I picked it from the trash can".
Through lovely pictures and small stories, we can arouse the interest of children. To let the children have a better understanding, we added Pinyin notes, and used a lot of metaphors to compared the biological professional knowledge to common things in children life. This can not only help them understand, but also let the children to learn in happy atmosphere and trigger their interested in biology. This is our original intention.
Here is our picture book～
iGEM2022-BIT-China Cooperated with Beijing Institute of Technology volunteer organization to Fangshan County Primary school volunteer teaching publicity.
In the summer of 2022, Hualiang Yue from iGEM2022-BIT-China and the volunteers of Beijing Institute of Technology, led by Miao Yu, a counselor of the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, went to volunteer teachers in Fangshan County Primary School, Luliang City, Shanxi Province.
As early as the end of June, the volunteer teaching team began the preparatory work of —— previous volunteer teaching experience sharing, teaching plan preparation, course trial lecture, material preparation, etc. The team members make the best use of their talents and characteristics to accumulate strength for the volunteer teaching practice.
Teaching activities were held in the five days of July 18-22. In the volunteer teaching class, the young teachers,such as Hualiang Yue, were enthusiastic, bringing rich and interesting courses, spreading hope for the children's future. Children were taught scientific and interesting knowledge, such as the structure of cells, the origin of life and so on. The children listened carefully in class, took notes, showed their eyes for knowledge, responded actively in class, and participated in many experiments, saying that they were magical and interesting, and benefited a lot. Under the leadership of Hualiang Yue , they learned a lot of scientific knowledge of biology, chemistry and physics altogether.
HuaLiang Yue said very happy to give the children on such a popular science class, saw for a long time not see the children happy smiling face, feel their childlike innocence and lovely, a new generation of children and lively kind, and full of curiosity. HuaLiang Yue was willing to add wonderful color for the children's life. At the same time, we also received feedback from the children:
"Time flies, a little reluctant to give up, although the time is very short, we have gained a lot, very like you these teachers, I hope I can study like you in Beijing Institute of Technology.”
"These days are very happy and fulfilling. If you have a chance in the future, you are welcome to visit our school again.”
Beijing Changping District No.1 Middle School, founded in 1951, is the first middle school in Changping district. It has always maintained the spirit of "unremitting self-improvement, integrity and loyalty", and has developed into a Beijing model ordinary high school with distinctive educational characteristics, and has become a banner of education development in Changping District.
On September 24,2022, Yuzhang Lun and Yiting Xing contacted the teachers of BIT team and Changping No.1 Middle School. Due to the epidemic, we had to give online lectures to the students of Beijing Changping No.1 Middle School and offline lectures within the university in the community.
First, the BIT team introduced the overview and project of their team. Then, Team BIT-China introduced the research ideas and methods of synthetic biology, the iGEM format, and our competition for this year and the "Oxygen Killer" (including inspiration, experiment, modeling, and human practice). Finally, I answered some questions from the students who participated in the lecture. For example, one student asked: Is a completely anaerobic environment easy to create in the laboratory? Does the completely anaerobic environment in biohydrogen production have an impact on cells? ( It will limit the activity of cells, so we want to build a low oxygen environment in cells under external oxygen conditions ). Some students have asked more questions about the "oxygen paradox", why does oxygen reduce some reaction efficiency? (Limiting the activity of some oxygen-sensitive enzymes.) Does the process of carbon sequestration then produce oxygen, which will in turn affect the efficiency of carbon sequestration itself? ( Some of the enzymes in carbon fixation are strictly anaerobic enzymes, and oxygen can inhibit the activity of these enzymes. Research hopes to avoid the influence of oxygen in the reaction, and design pathways that are not sensitive to oxygen.)
It was very meaningful that we held this presentation. First of all, we also learned a lot of ideas about experiment and human practice from the BIT team. Then, for the participants, most of them had not been exposed to synthetic biology before, and through our presentation, they learned more about some synthetic biology research ideas and IGEM. Inspiring more undergraduate and high school students to join synthetic biology is also one of the purposes of this presentation.
After obtaining the consent of the teacher and the school, Xuanye Zhao , a member of the team, returned to his Alma mater—— Urumqi No.8 Middle School on July 26, and preached entitled "synthetic biology and iGEM Competition" to the school biology competition class of 2021. Owing to the fact that the audience has a certain contact to university biological knowledge competition and have a deep interest in biology, so I decided to tell some basic knowledge of synthetic biology at the same time, showing some biological knowledge in the field of scientific research and actual production application; and introduced the iGEM competition, this can shows the high school group of the world's top ten projects last year.
After introducing myself, I took the two problems encountered by my team in the brainstorming process as an example. The first one showed the students how to use the learned biological theory model to explain some special phenomena mentioned in high school textbooks, and tried to solve them from the perspective of synthetic biology. The students also enthusiastically guessed about the knowledge they have learned. Then I told my experience about the projects and subjects that I have done in college, so that they can know the process and mode of doing scientific research, and encourage them to continue their further study in biology. Finally, I introduced Beijing Institute of Technology to them, hoping that some of them can apply for our Beijing Institute of Technology this year. The happiest thing I experienced in my biology competition in high school was that we were able to be use more knowledge to solve my own questions or confusion. These little happiness in solving problems made me pass through the tiring high school and the college entrance examination, so I shared these fun with my classmates and sisters, hoping that they could still "make fun in pain" even under the high-pressure college entrance examination study.
On September 2,2022, Senior Yiyang Sun held a lecture in the community for Qiushi 2022 freshmen. This presentation is mainly a comprehensive introduction to IGEM. He introduced to the freshmen the different rules of iGEM Gold Award and silver Award and bronze award, the composition plate and what needs to be done in each section, and what are the gold medal projects in previous years. Prepare for the new team in IGEM2023.
On September 24,2022, the BIT-China team from Beijing Institute of
Technology, together with the fellow BIT team, held an offline
presentation in the community. We detailed the freshmen about the
background of igem, synthetic biology, synthetic biology which is to
build artificial biological systems that will run them like circuits.
The initial synthetic biology used to formulate gene recombination
techniques. As science continues to evolve, scientists have been limited
to hard gene splicing, but to build genetic codes, hoping to build new
organisms with synthetic genetic factors. Our project is also based on
synthetic biology to build an intracellular low oxygen environment with
normal metabolic efficiency, in order to solve the problem that certain
oxygen concentrations will in turn limit the reactivity in some
reactions. We highlight the background and inspiration of the team work,
show the experimental work of the three modules of function, detection,
and also briefly introduce the modeling work and other aspects of the
work. Some students were very curious about our project, and asked them,
how to build a low-oxygen environment in the laboratory (we showed them
part of the experimental device, and briefly introduced the principle of
the device). How have we met the bottleneck in our project? (we most
directly contact our partnership, ask our advisor, or send an email
message to relevant experts). How do we identify the most suitable
species for the function module? (Through a large number of literature
searches, and timely communication with seniors and teachers, and
through the determination of experimental data.) Is leghemoglobin
expression needed? (The addition of heme increases a certain amount of
expression. Similarly, laccase contains copper, and when expressed, it
is better to add some copper ions)
As a form of artistic expression, comics have more affinity in the way of communication, It is universal, without regional and language customs, spreads a wide range, and can be broadcast on major social software. Therefore, the art group students drew some small cartoons inserted in the middle of the public account and ppt, and the five cartoons are made for the public of all ages. Therefore, the painting style of the cartoon is relatively simple and lovely. The key points of the biological knowledge to be explained are extracted through abstract or action description, part of the indescribable content supplemented by words, so as to achieve the purpose of promoting the biological knowledge of the cartoon. Therefore, the painting style of the cartoon is relatively simple and lovely. The key points of the biological knowledge to be explained are extracted through abstract or action description, part of the indescribable content supplemented by words, so as to achieve the purpose of promoting the biological knowledge of the cartoon. The biological knowledge in comic books looks more vivid and can help and guide thinking.
Part of our cartoon~~~
The Logo ran through our presentation, every cultural and creative product, and it is inspired by the E. coli bacteria that will be used throughout the whole experiment. The image of Escherichia coli is lovely through an abstract personification, retaining the rough texture and flagella on its surface, and playing the role to achieve the purpose of the project. We add a fork or a torch, intended to use oxygen to achieve a low oxygen environment and to provide more convenience for people's lives. The main color of logo is blue and yellow with different meanings, blue symbolizes our understanding of low oxygen, yellow represents our expectations for the future.
We went to the Beijing 798 Yue ART GAllERY. The art gallery, the synthetic biology fair held here, is the offline project promotion activity we attend for the public in person without an online meeting , which is a biological crossover art exhibition. We not only communicate with other iGEM teams, sell our project products around, we also promote our project in the gallery.798 art area enjoys superb geographic location, with a good flow of people large traffic, which cover all ages, all kinds of professional, all kinds of cultural level . We face the people from primary school students interested in biochemistry to Peking University, to researchers graduating from China University of Geosciences , from those who are engaged in security but are interested in biology, to university teachers who come to see our exhibition. According to the different people, we also introduce different content.
When taking our display board on the subway, our display board has already attracted the attention of many people. Some people go to our display board to see the content of our display board, ask us about the content of the display board, and the purpose of taking the display board. We will also give them a brief introduction to what we are doing, introduce the iGEM competition, the content of our project, etc., and also send them our project products and welcome them to pay attention to the competition and follow our project.
For the primary school students, middle school students ,we mainly introduce biology, synthetic biology simple knowledge, and the content of biological ethics, laboratory safety problems, etc., some children are in the stage of scientific enlightenment, after listening to our explanation of biology,they are willing to learn more extracurricular knowledge after it. And the children were attracted by the lovely cartoon on our display board, took the initiative to ask us about it, the children vaguely understand, but let us feel good.
Many people also listened carefully to the introduction of our project and communicated with us. They are curious about how we determine the project topic, how to spend the period of stagnation in the project,.Someone will ask our professional questions, ask our attribution and also put forward constructive suggestions for our project. About our team personnel task assignment, they are sure we make great use of team resources and team members’ ability. Among them, someone from Peking University who was engaged in similar industries after graduation communicated with us a lot. He had enthusiasm for our participation in iGEM and our project topic selection have been fully affirmed.
In order to attract more people to know about our project, we will first send our project products —— masks, this move attracted a lot of parents with children, they hope the children come out to play at the same time also can learn knowledge. It let our project propaganda stage into the climax. Many children watched our exhibition board, brought the masks we sent out and asked us questions. We answered them enthusiastically and interacted with them. Both of us gained a lot of harvest.
We created our own account, BIT-China, on Bilibili station, and delivered our educational videos on it. We will be divided into five groups, each group in synthetic biology book to find a knowledge plate, writing and make ppt, and recording the video, we used the English subtitles, English, we in plain language knowledge of synthetic biology, let the audience know more about synthetic biology, hoping to inspire you life and synthetic biology thinking.
We have created the public account called Synthetic Biology Little Assistant 2022, and published our educational video supporting copy and cartoon push on the public account, to complete the science popularization of synthetic biology.
Cultural and creative products are a carrier of culture, and are interactive forms of new display combining with the latest technology. It not only deepens the awareness of cultural and creative products, but also integrates cultural and creative products into life. We have designed a variety of cultural and creative products, I hope someone can see our projects in our daily life, learn about iGEM, learn about synthetic tics, and become interested in it. This is the publicity effect of cultural and creative products.
①We designed the uniform: the front icon outer circle on the one hand combines circulation with biochemical elements such as test tube rack and detection tank, intended to show the meaning of synthetic organisms. It can not only bring more convenience to our lives, but also reduce the pressure of the environment to achieve the common will of sustainable development. On the other hand, it symbolizes the team's persistence and spirit of excellence and the better expectation of the project. Colorful colors not only symbolize the fruitful youth, but also symbolizes the colorful charm of the project. The three E. coli in the circle, one representing the guardian, one representing the optimistic, the other representing hypoxia, respectively correspond to the meaning of synthetic organisms, the spirit of the team, the project content. The icon on the back mainly extracts the book elements from the School of Chemical Engineering icon, plus an arrow into the book. It tended to show that we roam in the ocean of knowledge, to learn and explore. The jumping out E. coli means we can not only stay in the book knowledge, but also jump out of the book to practice to communicate and complete our project.
②We designed the mugs and file bags: The applied image is two jumping E. coli in blue and yellow, which would like to show the unity, optimism and positive of our team in the present. What’s, we hope to bring happy emotional impact to users.
③We have also designed the keychain blind box: It simply shows the versatility of the project, and in the form of the blind box can also attract more attention to our team and iGEM competition.
④Together with NAU-CHINA、BUCT-China to jointly designed face masks and postcards：In the current epidemic, masks have become an essential part of daily travel. Masks can protect ourselves and promote our project. More using of different team projects logo, can also show the not serious and rigid side of biochemistry. Also, considering people who like to mail letters, we printed some postcards.
