Education
Inspiration
Synthetic biology and biotechnology itself is not something that the general public has a deep understanding of, but it is something that is slowly starting to have a major impact on people’s everyday life. COVID-19 vaccines and test kits are recent examples of the kind of impact synthetic biology and biotechnology can have on the world. To contribute to public awareness of the increasing presence of these technologies in daily life, we created a podcast to deepen people’s understanding of synthetic biology and biotechnology.
According to our public opinion survey, it is observed that the majority of people don’t have a great understanding of the banana crisis. After more investigation, we came to the realization that Fusarium Wilt is not as well-known a disease as many of the other diseases that threaten human health; however, the utter collapse of a crop as widespread as the banana has significant economic and humanitarian impacts - we explain this in the description page. Thus, we hope to educate and inform the public about the banana crisis through various methods. By raising awareness on this topic, we hope it might contribute to the ongoing effort in combating this crisis.
That’s Bananas! Podcast
Our podcast, That’s Bananas!aims to engage the public through yet another pathway. Our audience consists of those who have an interest in science and would like to learn more. We hope to reach out to those who may not have the chance to learn about synthetic biology or biotechnology and teach them how these new advances have impacted our lives and how they could impact us in the future. Our podcast not only documents our journey and process as an iGEM 2022 team, but it also provides helpful guidelines, tips, and advice for future iGEM teams. In our episodes, we provide an introduction to the iGEM competition, synthetic biology, and biotechnology; diving into conversations involving our personal opinion, real-world data, reliable sources, and personal experiences; we discussed topics related to ethics and morals of synthetic biology, new advancements in the scientific community, and our own struggles and success along the way. The podcast also acts as a means of spreading awareness of our own project, which targets the banana crisis, informing our audience of the severity of the issue and how we plan to tackle it.
For more information on our podcast, visit the contributions page.
Infographic exhibition
Throughout the meetings with Thailand_RIS, we discovered the language barriers between the iGEM teams and the general public. Since synthetic biology was considered a novel field of study, both teams recognized the need to disseminate the science to the general public in an easy way. We don’t expect the public to know the details about the knowledge, but we hope to show them the contribution and role of synthetic biology in this world. Therefore, we teamed up with the other two teams, Korea_HS and UiOslo_Norway, in an effort to share the basics of this realm with the public. We collected infographics from various teams in different regions and changed the languages and simplified the contents. Eventually, we spread the infographic into different communities in different corners of the globe via Instagram and presentations, reaching out to people with different backgrounds.
For more information on our podcast, visit the Infographics Page.
Presentations
Slides
In order to educate people in different age groups, we decided to create various presentation slides. The presentation slides are designed based on the language background of different audiences. We created two versions of the presentation: English and Chinese. For the English version, we made an advanced version targeting experts and iGEM participating teams, including detailed information about bananas, the infection pathway of tropical race four, current problems, and solutions, and explained the theory of our solution via diagrams and images. In addition, a section discussing is set at the end of our project. The Chinese version targets the local community, who are unable to understand English. By translating the English version into Chinese, our parents and the local expert (Taiwan Banana Research Institute) can not only engage the audience but also help us to promote this issue in our local community, raising the public’s awareness.
In-person Presentation
In an effort to present our project in a more engaging way, we held numerous in-person presentations with audiences from different age groups. Traditional teaching not only can help the audience to learn more details about our project but any questions the audience may have can be answered firsthand. Although we weren’t able to visit each school as we hoped, we educated the students from elementary school students to graduate high schoolers at 2 campuses of Kang Chiao International School. They can be separated into two main categories: 6-8th graders, and 9-10th graders.
Since 7-8th graders are considered beginners to biology, the main goal for us is to inspire them on the topic. In the presentation, we focused on interactions with the students instead of lecturing. Using Chinese presentation slides as assistance, we prompted the curiosity of the audience in this age with a more playful tone and simpler content.
For the presentation to 10th and 11th graders, we chose the English version as all of the 10th graders at KCIS took biology lessons in 9th grade, indicating most of the students have a basic understanding of our topic. In addition, we also presented to the 11th graders at Taipei Fuhsing Private School, reaching a wider audience of different ages. The advanced scientific information added to this presentation also helped the students learn more about the banana crisis and our solution conceptually.
Apart from presenting to the 10th graders at KCIS, we also educated a focus group of students who are interested in biology and the iGEM competition on Sep.1st. We teamed up with NYCU_Formosa and KCIS_Xiugang_Taipei and co-organized an educational panel that included BioArt, basic lab skills (Gel electrophoresis), and project introduction. In this event, we educated 20 students about the banana crisis, dry lab models, and our solution. Our project was provided as a real-life example of synthetic biology, helping the students truly grasp the potential impact of this subject. At the end of the panel, we played a Kahoot game to engage and interact with the audience. Moreover, we introduced the students to how iGEM teams operate and encouraged them to participate in next year’s competition. The event guided the students toward a basic understanding of synthetic biology.
Online Presentation
Other than just educating students our age, our team also held an online presentation for parents and friends. For this presentation, we utilized the Chinese version to better communicate with a largely mandarin speaking audience. By holding this presentation, we hope that individuals from the older generation can better understand how synthetic biology and biotechnology can be used to better their lives.
Educational Video
Because Taiwan is considered one of the more COVID-conscious countries, it was difficult for us to visit each school in person. We decided to film an educational video to send to audiences that we couldn’t visit. To make our video more engaging, we decided to do a short animation with a voiceover. We sent our video via email to the 6th and 8th graders at Kang Chiao International School. With the assistance of homeroom teachers, we delivered our video to more than 1500 students. We also posted our video on YouTube for easier access. Our YouTube channel can be found in the footer.
We utilized Instagram as a social media platform to spread awareness of biology, announce our team’s activity, and contact other iGEM participating teams.
Posts
On our official account (@gems_taiwan), we’ve been consistently posting fun facts and knowledge about bananas and our topic in an attempt to further educate the public. To make the information more digestible for a wider audience, we simplified some of the denser scientific knowledge. By doing so, we hope the public will understand our concept in an engaging and entertaining manner. See below for some of our posts.
Secondly, we used Instagram as our promotion platform to introduce our team members, announce our collaboration efforts, and also the daily activity of the team. We utilized this platform to encourage public interaction. For instance, we created posts for our partnership projects and podcast channel promotion, reaching a wider audience.
Video/Reel
Following Instagram trends, we filmed short videos created for our collaborative efforts as well as educational purposes and posted them on our Instagram page as a reel. Our team hopes to use this to further spread the knowledge of the banana crisis, reaching a wider audience.
Conclusion
Through education and social media, we drew attention to our topic of the F. oxysporum in the banana industry. In the course of this project, we utilized various methods, including in-person and online presentations, educational videos, as well as simple Kahoot activities to reach out to different audiences. On the other hand, infographic posts, short clips, and podcast shows are publicly spread on various platforms such as YouTube and Instagram; this allows the materials to interact with the audience in a more entertaining manner, engaging a far wider audience than what our team could achieve in traditional presentations. Raising general awareness of the topic not only raises awareness for the crisis but also guides future generations toward finding novel solutions to difficult problems.