On October 9th of this year，We carried out a small class to support teaching to children in remote mountainous areas at Guangxi Laibin City Wuxuan County Experimental Junior High School , explaining to them the basic content and knowledge about synthetic biology, giving them an initial enlightenment about biology, which has a significant and far-reaching impact.
We took this opportunity to go into the mountain village and learn about the lack and scarcity of
educational resources for the children in 
the mountainous area, and we
also learned that the environment and
conditions are very backward due to
the geographical location and transportation.
After understanding the situation, we wanted to help them learn more with our own power. So we started
our teaching activities here. In the process, we educated the children about synthetic biology and briefly
about our project. We not only talked about the origin of life, the cell, but also taught them about the
life of a cell and that people are made of cells, and the children were very interested. At the same time,
we showed them the
hand-drawn book that we designed and drew ourselves
and introduced them to
our topic of microalgae through the hand-drawn book.
The children were very curious about the biological knowledge and asked us questions, and we answered
them patiently.
After the popularization of science, we took a group photo with the children to record their thirsty faces for biological knowledge. At the same time, we also asked them what they wanted to know so that we could do the science fair next time. We to protect the water resources, advocate garbage classification as a starting point, hope can for high school students to preach about sewage treatment technology, the prevention of water pollution, garbage classification and so on, so as to make students form and strengthen the consciousness of environmental protection and garbage classification and form a relatively complete system of environmental protection and the related method, the important thought of the promotion of green environmental protection, Make garbage sorting and water resources protection a good trend and conscious action for more people.
According to the World Health Organization, at least 2.2 billion people around the world today suffer from near or distance vision impairment. At least 1 billion of them (almost half) have vision impairment that could have been prevented or to be addressed. We know that vision impairment creates a lot of inconvenience for individuals. Because they are a special group, we can't carry out activities in the same way as before. In the end, our team held several meetings and decided to cooperate with the Fujian Association for the Blind to hold a volunteer activity themed of walking with the blind in Fuzhou Forest Park in August this year. Through this exchange, we hope to provide care to the blind and explore the impact of our project on special groups. iGEM is an inclusive organization, and we also want to create a more inclusive space that facilitates dialogue between the iGEM team and the entire iGEM community, opening doors for special groups.
At first, we were unable to get in touch with any blind people in the field of synthetic biology, which also emphasised the lack of participation of blind people in the field. We have previously recognized that even in fast-developing regions, there are deficiencies in the construction of safeguards for the blind. We further searched for blind groups to promote synthetic biology knowledge, and finally contacted the Provincial Association for the Blind to hold this event together.
To see how much the blind community knows about synthetic biology, two members of our iGEM team accompanied the two blind men on a walk. They asked us questions like what color is our badge? What shape is our logo? We all describe to them as vividly as possible. Through this question, they also told us about the difficulties they encountered in their daily lives, such as they are regrettable that it was difficult for them to read books independently. We approach them in the most respectful and responsible way, hoping to give them care and help.
The best way to find out what's wrong is to have a conversation. To help the blind community understand synthetic biology, learn about our project. We should make all scientific data accessible to them. The scientific community's awareness of the blind is important for making science inclusive for this large segment of society. That's why we host this event. We talked to them a lot while walking with them.
Synthetic biology is developing rapidly, and we believe that genetic engineering may be used to treat eye-related diseases in the future, bringing good news to solve vision-related problems. We shared with them about the idea, and they were very excited about the vision. In addition, one of our team members was accompanied by a man in his 30s. When we talked about disseminating synthetic biology knowledge in the form of hand-drawn books and popular science books, he was very interested. He says that while he doesn't feel the books, it must be a very interesting and effective method. Through communication with him, we determined the feasibility of our publicity approach and ignited our idea of making a Braille version of the popular science material. After the event, we send them home.
We are very grateful to the Fujian Association for the Blind for giving us this opportunity to communicate with the blind community. It was a rewarding experience that made us understand that our project advocacy is not very complete for special groups. And it affects all igemers involved, which is what iGEM embodies: a diverse community whose goal is to become more it is good.
Humanistic care is always a very important of our team."The 2022 CHINA-FAFU team from College of Life Sciences, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University joined hands with Yizhou Street and Taishan Community of Yizhou Street to carry out an activity with the theme of "Keeping the beauty of nature" in the morning of October 8. The theme of "Keeping the beauty of nature" was a filial activity to enrich the cultural life of the elderly, and to lead them to celebrate the National Day and the Chrysanthemum Day by making dried flower bookmarks.
Dried flower art bookmark Dried flower art bookmark belongs to a kind of pressed flower art, which has a long history. It is made by using physical and chemical methods to dehydrate, preserve color, press and dry plant materials including roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits and bark to make flat flower materials, and then made by clever conception. In this way, we hope to mobilize the minds of our elders, inspire their love for nature and keep the beauty of nature around them.
The host introduced the raw materials and tools for making bookmarks: dried flowers, tweezers, scissors,
glue, and tassels. After the facilitator explained the steps, everyone had a basic understanding of how to
make them and they were eager to try. The next step was to make the bookmark with their own hands. The old
people took the tweezers in their hands and carefully placed the dried flowers on the bookmark, creating all
kinds of pictures by matching the flowers and grasses and different colors. Some of them even took up pens
and wrote phrases in Chinese and English. During the project, iGEM team members communicated with the
elderly, introducing the types of dried flowers and chatting about family life...
All the bookmarks made by
the elderly were unique and in a short time, most of them were done and competed to show their works. The
aunties had a sense of accomplishment when they held the bookmarks they had made with their own hands. The
dried flower bookmarks were of different styles, and with the tassels that matched the color of the flowers,
they revealed a more simple and elegant flavor. The air was full of cheerfulness as the old people passed
their masterpieces around and praised each other. Dried flower bookmarks are small but can decorate life and
warm the hearts. Although it was just a small craft activity, it enriched the daily and spiritual life of
the elderly and let them experience the fun of making bookmarks and the warmth of interacting with their
offspring. Reflection and further improvement Finally, before the activity ended, we also gave out our small
gifts to each of the elderly people who participated in the activity, hoping that they would feel our care.
The aunties were all smiles with their bookmarks and the gifts we gave them. They said they were happy to
feel the beauty of nature could be reflected in this way, and they pulled the team members to take pictures
together. Some of them even said that we gave them a sense of home when their children were working outside.
One grandmother said, "Making dried flower bookmarks as a craft activity is also effective in
preventing us from getting Alzheimer's."
Although small, dried flower bookmarks can decorate life and warm hearts. This activity not only
enriched the daily life of the elderly
and let them experience the fun of making bookmarks with their hands. iGEM team and volunteers from
social organizations also
provided thoughtful services and assistance to the elderly
, which effectively made them feel the warmth of the community and enhanced the good image of the
community service center.
The original intention of the team planning to visit the orphanage is to bring a little warmth to the children with special needs. After we contacted the orphanage near the community and prepared the preliminary work, we received bad news-an epidemic broke out in our area. According to the needs of local epidemic prevention policies, we had to change the itinerary of this event. But we don't want such a well-planned event to be aborted, so we want to donate it to all IGEM participants.
IGEM is an international competition with a long history. The original intention of the competition is to solve some problems in the community by using synthetic biology. We know that the power of a team is small, so we hope to make some contributions to the future IGEM team. Now we have just encountered such an opportunity, so we decided to provide the orphanage plan to all teams participating in the IGEM competition free of charge.
We hope to provide some help to children with special needs in the human practice section of the team. We use nature and wild animals to introduce environmental protection concepts, and guide them to draw the rivers in their hearts and the plants (animals) they most want to become through a class. We have noticed that the children in the orphanage belong to a special group, so we pay attention to the psychological sensitivity of the children in the practice process, because the children in a special state are very sensitive, it is best to care them uncompromisingly, not discriminatory, not despised, We do not ignore or treat each child differently. We cannot hurt the psychology of some children in order to hold an event.
We recognize that the team's contribution to IGEM is insufficient, so it is within our ability to promote IGEM events when we make popular science videos. At the same time, we also hope that this donation to the orphanage can provide some help to other IGEM teams or future IGEM teams.