Communication and Education
● Our efforts for the next generation
Currently there lacks an atmosphere to promote environmental protection in social media, especially in animation, which is a favorite for younger kids. Thus, in our communications activities, we aim to conduct an outreach education for children concerning our environment, especially our topic - heavy metal pollution.
Figure 1. We were giving a small lecture to the younger kids
To achieve our goals, we organized an indoor lecture in the local community and taught some basic knowledge about environmental pollution to younger kids on the evening of July 24th. Our team members used easy and funny ways to help them recognize some harmful heavy metals so that they could realize the harm of these heavy metals and the importance of environmental protection. With the help of PPT and videos, we vividly introduced the types, definitions and hazards of heavy metals in life and called for attention to this issue. What’s more, we also arranged a Q&A session to encourage them to think out of the box and develop critical thinking skills. Unsurprisingly, children were more active in stepping deeper into the matter, which in return inspired us a lot on understanding the current topic and ideas of deeper education activities. During our communication, we passed our impact to the next generation.
● Our channels on social media
Figure 2. Screenshots of our WeChat Official Account and our Instagram
Per our previous online survey, it indicated that many people will read some online posts from WeChat Official Accounts to gather information. Thus, we decided to create our own team WeChat Official Account for public educational purposes. To spread our impact abroad, we also created an Instagram account where we could also post educational information regarding our topic and communicate with the concerned followers.
Figure 3. Screenshot of our first post on WeChat Official Account regarding our team
To be brief, our posts on WeChat Official Account followed a basic order and they could be separated into four stages. In the first stage, we made a team introduction and explained the meaning of the team name and logo, as well as the competition, iGEM we participated in. In the second stage, we introduced the definition of heavy metals and the dangers of heavy metal pollution. Thirdly, we published information about the distribution of heavy metals in each region and the amount of various heavy metals in nature. In the fourth stage, we shared our efforts in promoting our topic, investigating the solution, et al. Below are some sample posts of our scientific and educational articles.
Figure 4. Article: A Bite of Heavy Metal
We would like to warn people of the potential exposure of our daily food to heavy metal pollution, so we wrote an article named “A Bite of Heavy Metal”. This article starts with the origin of heavy metal pollution, then it gave a scientific introduction to heavy metals, including the physical definition and the classification. After that, we quoted some reports which indicated that our food even those in the supermarket have been tested for their concentration of some heavy metals like Cd exceeds its standard in some areas and these will do harm to our physical health.
Figure 5. Article: “The source and distribution of heavy metal pollution”
We would like to share with the public what we have investigated about heavy metal pollution so that they can be aware of the current situation and may pay more attention to this issue. In this article, we introduced the route of heavy metals into human bodies and their impact on our physical health in detail. In addition, we also showed some typical areas where the heavy metal pollution is very severe. It might ring the alarm to people who used to not care about heavy metal pollution that much.
Figure 6. Article: “How terrible is heavy metal”
Since we have mentioned the harm of heavy metals in food, we didn’t take that deeper into each element’s influence. Thus we wrote another article, to restate the influence of these heavy metals, including Hg. We didn’t mean to scare people, but we want more people to pay attention to this threat that exists in our real world even around us.
Figure 7. Article: “Do you know what to eat to expel heavy metal residue from your body?”
Besides providing some knowledge or information about heavy metal pollution, we also wanted to help people reduce the influence of exposure to heavy metals. Therefore, we consulted some people and did some investigation and we realized that there is some food that could assist in expelling the residue of heavy metals outside the human body, like carrots and milk. In this article, we recommended people try this healthy food and provided scientific reasons why these food can help reduce the harm of heavy metals. We hope this article could contribute to public health against the harm of heavy metal exposure.
● Our outreach in human practice and fundraising
We release an online questionnaire, not only collecting respondents’ information and opinions on our concerned topic, but we were also giving out the information we wanted to share with the public and we wanted our survey to increase public attention to this topic.
Besides, we also interviewed different stakeholders, including those staff who works in Dyestuff factories waterworks, and environmental protection technology companies. During our communication, we can not only listen to their views regarding heavy metal pollution but also promote our design, and our solution to them. After that, they could learn about biotechnology and our project. The influence might be not that big, but it counts.
Finally, in our fundraising activity, we directly spoke to the public, to strangers. During the fundraising, many passers showed their curiosity about what we were doing and what we were fundraising for, so we could further communicate with them about our project. Therefore, we could help increase the awareness of the public on heavy metal pollution and their attention to biotechnology.
