Education & Communication

Overview

Science is never just for scientists. Our project, which aimed to give rise to a better world, would mean nothing, if there weren't a two-way dialogue held between science and society. Our solution will be seen, accepted, and implemented only when connections are made between synthetic biology and the general public. This year, our team aimed to engage a broad and diversified population differing in age, gender, nationality, and so on, with the most apt approaches, ranging from comics to documentaries, from exhibitions to online courses, broadening the scope of our education and communication.

WeChat Official Account

Seeing people's enthusiasm in social media, we decided to embark on our education journey through our official account on WeChat named “SCIE iGEM.” After evaluation, we have decided that comics would be a better approach and introduce synthetic biology to a broader variety of audiences than plain texts, as comics provide a more vivid and easily understood visualization.

We have created comics introducing our project and the synthetic biology knowledge behind our topic. Moreover, every page of our comics has offered both English and Chinese versions, so nationality would no longer be a barrier of communication.

Fig.1 Chinese and English versions of our comics

Feedback on our posts is collected by sending out public questionnaires looking for questions or suggestions for our comics or article. We often received constructive feedback like: “text on the comics could be a bit bigger,” “love the comics!” and so forth.

We also kept updating the exciting moments and topics we encountered as our project progressed.

Student-produced Documentary

Based on research, surveys, and interviews, GreatBay_SCIE recorded the process of discovering the textile waste issue, investigating the importance of textile recycling, and raising social awareness. We presented these precious recordings as documentaries and published them on social media. With engaging atmospheres, comprehensive overviews, and wide accessibility to all members of society, we hope these documentaries could increase public attention to this environmental issue and encourage the whole society to be concerned and engaged. Building on the background of our human practices journey, we have also discussed the experimental part of our project in the documentary, integrating synthetic biology harmoniously, which helps work out textile waste and other environmental issues. With the surprising number of over 1200 views per documentary, we are gathering more people to join us and witness the solution to such issues through synthetic biology.

Trailer: Our self-produced documentary starts with a trailer, stressing the problematic nature of the clothes, paving the way for the subsequent four full episodes to reveal the hidden truth to the public.

An Underlying Nightmare Behind Fashion: Integrating feedback we received from interviews on the street, experts in the fashion industry, and the textile recycling industry, we vividly revealed the underlying nightmare behind fashion, raising public awareness of the problem of textile waste.

The Fabric Recycling Chain: According to Mr. Wang, the co-founder of a textile recycling company and an important person we encountered during our human practices journey, there have long been biased stereotypes among the public regarding textile recycling. To effectively eliminate such deep-rooted stereotypes, we have unveiled the mysterious process of textile recycling told by Mr. Wang and discussed the moral issue regarding the dilematic nature of clothes recycling bins – beneficent donations versus a commercialized recycling chain.

Hardware Design: We did not stop at obtaining positive experiment results. To make our unique solution FabRevivo more realistic and more reliable, we have designed well-considered hardware with the help of LINKS_China.

FabRevivo in the Real World: After designing our hardware, we determined the wide range of users of our solution and proposed a thorough implementation for our project, including research and development, small-scale trial production and outreach, and mass production and brand establishment.

iGEM Club

Besides the digital promotion of our project and synthetic biology, we also established in-person connections with the surrounding society. In our school, Shenzhen College of International Education, we held an iGEM Club, giving rise to a community of synbio-enthusiasts. Not only have we discussed basic knowledge such as central dogma, but we have also talked about stories along the development of synthetic biology, bringing multi-aspects of SynBio to our peers.

Fig.2 65 members in the iGEM Club

Regarding reflections, we were more than open to both positive and negative feedback.

Fig.3 Feedback from our members

Nevertheless, we were glad to see these positive influences that we have brought to these potentially future iGEMers and the bright future that our education has created.

SynBio Exhibition

Besides creating a community for synbio-enthusiasts, we also held an elaborated exhibition near the gate of our school, Shenzhen College of International Education, with the help of LINKS_China. The exhibition's content not only included Synthetic Biology but also included the projects of the two teams and the prior values of the projects. Most importantly, it welcomed students and teachers from any subject or department, further eliminating the barrier.

GreatBay_SCIE gathered engaging information about the history of synthetic biology, the milestones of Synthetic Biology, and the most popular technologies in the field of synthetic biologies, such as PCR and CRISPR-Cas9. This textual information was made into delicate posters and numerous diagrams, making the information more easily understood by our peers and teachers from different departments. We also prepared a poster about our project, "FabRevivo," including the background and our experiment design, and another poster about the inspiration of our project ––fast-fashion pollution, where people were introduced to different approaches to recycling unwanted clothes and involved in the elimination of pollution. LINKS_China 2022 prepared a poster about their "UV PRISMA" project to share and educate people about different types of sunscreens. Many of our team members stayed at the exhibition after school, and there were many excellent discussions with other peers and teachers interested in our projects.

On the left-hand side, we prepared an empty poster for signatures where people were welcome to drop down any thoughts in any form and language about this exhibition, our projects, iGEM, or synthetic biology. We were all so happy to see all the encouraging drawings and positive comments in many different languages; this provided us with profound insights into the public's positive impression of our projects and synthetic biology. People were welcome to take away some of our self-designed souvenirs, including LINKS_China's sticker set, GreatBay_SCIE's sticker set, and two types of masks with different designs.

Fig.4 Passionate comments received

Fig.5 Pick a card!

Online Course for the Younger Generation

Children are always the prime target when it comes to education. As high school students, we felt pity for not meeting synthetic biology until high school. Thus, we decided we were responsible for introducing synthetic biology to the younger generation.

We have designed a unique lesson for the young, simplifying sophisticated terminologies into intriguing analogies. For instance, the double helix of DNA was described as a twisted ladder, while the different nucleotides were represented by flags with different colors. Mutations were even introduced along with the game Plants V.S. Zombies.

Fig.6 An interactive lesson

Through this online course, we aimed to provide more information and promote the concept of synthetic biology, including what it does and how it works. Many children may have heard of DNA before but do not know how it functions as the blueprint of life. Fortunately, many children have shown great interest in synthetic biology and followed along with our class. It was certainly our pleasure to lead them into the fascinating world of biology.

SynBio Craft

Apart from traditional educative activities such as lessons and speeches, GreatBay_SCIE provides the whole society with a new and entertaining means of education – card games: SynBio Craft. Four types of cards are used in this game: Functional card, material card, random accident card, and result card.

The end point of our game is to synthesize a sequence with a specific base pair length within the shortest time, with random allocation of three types of cards respectively. Material cards give sequences with different lengths; functional cards have experimental skills to combine those materials; random accident cards could reduce or increase the time taken and the possibility of success. The following PDF includes the full description and instructions for our card game:

The synbiocraft pdf: https://static.igem.wiki/teams/4275/wiki/education/synbiocraft.pdf

Detailed and comprehensible explanations and drawings were printed on the cards so everyone, even without previous knowledge of synthetic biology, could enjoy and participate in the game, which perfectly reflected our goal: to educate and introduce synthetic biology in an inclusive, entertaining, and easily comprehensible way.

Fig.7 Bringing SynBio Craft to iGEM Club