Ⅰ. Promotional videos and articles
We produced several tweets and promotional videos about synthetic biology and submitted them on bilibili.com and WeChat, which were widely read and broadcasted.
In order to let more people know about IGEM, we put several videos about IGEM in Station B. In these videos, we shared our experience in the competition and some interesting things happened in the process of the competition.In addition, in order to achieve a high degree of integration with the social level, we also made most of the human practice activities in the whole project into the form of video to promote our project.
We have also made full use of the WeChat official account as a publicity tool. We have posted many articles on the WeChat official account in the fields of experiment, human practice, partnership and cooperation, so as to promote the concept of synthetic biology and IGEM.
Ⅱ. Science Lectures
To our surprise, our WeChat official account article was forwarded and publicized by the 9th CCIC community. This has not only expanded our influence, but also made more people know about our project, and promoted more capable talents to devote themselves to the construction of synthetic biology.
Purpose
In order to promote synthetic biology and igem, stimulate students' interest in biology, develop students' imagination about biology, cultivate students' scientific spirit of "daring to explore and innovate", and improve students' scientific and cultural literacy, our team decided to carry out a series of popular science activities, starting from three themes: life, disease and frontier technology, to explain the impact of life science on our daily life from the perspective of biology.
Target group
Approximately 500 secondary school students from the Haikou Foreign Language School affiliated to Beijing Foreign Studies University and interested undergraduates from our university.
Contents
A. Preparation: Our team has prepared four themes of science education, "The Secret of Coffee" under the theme of life, "Disappearing Love - Alzheimer's Disease" under the theme of disease, and "Frontier Technology" under the theme of Scientists know the motor - DNA nanoscale molecular motor", "the magic genetic scalpel - CRISPR". Some of these are related to our project and some are close to life, and we hope our science lectures can balance fun and seriousness. B. Invitation After preparing the science education content and rehearsing it in the team. We started to look for the target audience of our science popularization. At first, we planned to invite interested undergraduates from our university to give them a more professional science education. However, in the process of preparation, we decided to expand our influence and let more people see synthetic biology and let more people know about igem, so we started to look for suitable universities, and in the process of searching, it was not as smooth as we thought. Due to the epidemic, some schools did not open, and some rejected us for various reasons, such as time mismatch. However, with our persistent efforts, we finally succeeded in communicating with Haikou Foreign Language School affiliated with Beijing Foreign Studies University and got an opportunity to make a presentation. C. Cooperation After determining the time of the lecture and planning the general flow of the activity, in order to make our science popularization more abundant, we took the initiative to contact other schools to jointly conduct science popularization with us. With continuous communication with other teams, we finally invited iGEM teams from Guangxi University and Jilin University to participate in the science lectures we held.
We also invited the iGEM team from Guangxi University and Jilin University to give a science talk together. Their presence enriched the content of the lectures.
Format
Unfortunately, due to the severity of the epidemic in our school location, we had to deliver the science talk in an online format.
Processes
I.Pre-planning
Chinese version of the plan
English translated version of the plan
II. Conducting science lectures
Conducted by our team
Life Theme: "The Secret of Coffee"
Due to its refreshing effects and unique taste, coffee has been spread around the world for centuries. Nowadays, coffee is no longer a "mysterious" drink for us, as cafes of all brands have sprung up all over China. On a lazy afternoon or a late night with a cup of coffee, you'll be full of energy! But is coffee really refreshing, how does it work on the body, and why do I still get sleepy after drinking it? We explain the origins of coffee, the mechanism of caffeine, rumours about coffee and the benefits of coffee.
Disease Theme: "Vanishing Love - Alzheimer's Disease"
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), one person in the world is diagnosed with dementia every three seconds. Alzheimer's disease (AD) accounts for 60-70% of dementia cases worldwide and is one of the major health challenges of the 21st century. In China, about one in every hundred and fifty people have Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease is not far from us, what are the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease? What are the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease? How does it develop? What are the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and how does it develop? What are the means of early prevention or intervention? We have answered all these questions for the secondary school students in our scientific talks.
Cutting-edge technology theme: "Borealis knows horses, scientists know motors - DNA nanoscale molecular motors"
In a recent study published in the journal Nature, a team of physicists has used DNA origami to create the first nanoscale electric motor built from DNA strands. This is not the first nanoscale DNA motor, but it is the first nanoscale molecular rotary motor that can actually perform measurable mechanical work. Our science talk starts with DNA origami technology and molecular motors, and goes on to describe new breakthroughs in DNA nanoscale molecular motors, new research mechanisms and what is expected in terms of future applications of molecular motors.
Cutting-edge technology theme: "The amazing genetic scalpel - CRISPR"
Since the dawn of mankind, we have been forced to fight the oldest organisms on the planet - viruses. And the CRISPR system is the bacterial equivalent of the immune system, which acts like a scalpel to precisely excise the genetic information of invading viruses and stop them from proliferating. In this science fair, we provide an introduction to the principles and applications of CRISPR.
Conducted by our partner teams
Guangxi University - Into synthetic biology
Yao Jiawei from Guangxi University introduced the development of synthetic biology, the current applications of synthetic biology, the interdisciplinary nature of synthetic biology, and incidentally introduced iGEM to the secondary school students.
Jilin University - Synthetic Biology Series of Public Interest Classes
Wang Shiyao from Jilin University briefly introduced the conventional idea of design-experiment-summary in synthetic biology by explaining the in vitro synthesis of enzymes and other examples, helping to build a preliminary understanding of synthetic biology.
Site conditions
Site photo
"The beauty of biology, the beauty of the world" Science Talk 2022.9.26 Science Talk begins.
HainanU_China's Liang Moyan is giving a presentation on DNA molecular motors
Screenshot of video conference
Secondary school students participating in a science talk through multimedia equipment in the classroom
Site evaluation
(Your report was very interesting and original.)
(The content of the talk was new and broadened the children's horizons.)
III. Return visit and feedback
More than 20 days after the online lecture, the epidemic subsided and we visited Haikou Foreign Language School, affiliated to Beijing Foreign Studies University, for a return visit to the lecture.
Mr Z, Senior School Biology Teacher: This science talk for the university students broadened their horizons on background knowledge of synthetic biology, fostered their interest, stimulated their curiosity and led to further discussion and reflection. The day before, when we talked about DNA in class, most of the students already knew something about it, which they had learnt in the lecture, and the discussion in that class was very intense. It was clear that the science lecture really did engage the students and provoke thought.
High school student L: The synthetic biology session presented by the seniors before was really fascinating. We saw that there are many places outside the textbook where synthetic biology can be developed and utilized, and I still remember the lecture on molecular motors by the senior from HainanU-China.
Ms. N., parent of student: I used to be very unfamiliar with the concept of synthetic biology, I always felt that it was a nebulous thing, after all, the chemical synthesis technology is already very advanced. I hope my children will join the wave of synthetic biology and continue to work hard and improve. I hope my children will join the wave of synthetic biology and continue to work hard and improve. It was also very impressive to see how clearly the university students were able to speak.
However, some teachers also reported that the content we presented was difficult and that there was a big difference in the knowledge base between junior and senior secondary students, with some junior secondary students not being able to understand the content we presented. In response, we have learnt from this and will pay more attention to the differences in knowledge and understanding between different groups of people when conducting similar educational activities in the future, and design more targeted activities.
During the return visits we received praise as well as critical suggestions, and the science talks were not only a way for us to spread knowledge to others, but we also gained valuable experience ourselves.
IV. Follow-up
We have videotaped the whole lecture and archived it on a web site for future teams to study and learn from.
(Video uploaded on the right, captions throughout on the left)
Ⅲ. The iGEM Guide
Introduction
When team HananU_China was first established, we met JLU_China, who was also in their first year of participation. Since both teams were new in their first year of participation, we wanted to create a handbook at the beginning of this tournament to record the stories of both teams in detail. The original purpose of the handbook is to inspire people's love for synthetic biology, to lower the threshold for them to participate in the igem competition, and to let all the students around us know about the igem event. We will write down as many problems we encountered and how we solved them in this handbook, so that people can get started better. In the process of recording, we will regularly organize the problems encountered by the two teams at each stage into chapters and push them at the same time, as of now have jointly pushed 8 articles, with the depth of the tournament, we launched the 1.0 version of the manual
1. Invite more teams to join, share their experiences and shortcuts, and keep improving the manual.
2. Release the manual in the official community, authorize subsequent teams to carry on and relay, promote the igem event and help future igem teams to participate.
3. We will add more insights to the handbook, the content of conversations with igemers, and translate the handbook into many different languages, inviting igem teams from other countries to join and promote and publicize in their local areas, so that the handbook can become a guidebook to promote the development of synthetic biology and make more people understand the igem event.
So far, we have received eight team experience sharing from BUCT_China, FAFU_China, etc. The sharing covers eight areas: IGEM and synthetic biology basics, team formation, division of labor, methods of effective contact and communication with mentors, methods of selecting topics, overview of HP work, requirements for good artwork and good web pages, and introduction to 3D modeling design.Brochure display:
Ⅳ. Hosting an online virtual meetup
UESTC-BioTech has been working on synthetic biology breakthroughs in oil and energy production by tuning the lipid metabolism-related pathways of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii with the CRISPR-Cas9 system, so we have entered into a partnership with UESTC-BioTech based on CRISPR technology and have formed strong ties in the subsequent exchanges and collaborations, from which we have gained Mutual benefits. Based on the commonality of the technologies used by both parties, we jointly organized the CRISPR meetup on August 14, 2022 in order to seek a wider commonality of cooperation. HiZJU-China, NWU-CHINA-A, SCAU_China, SJTU-software and other teams to share their projects. We discussed the difficulties encountered in the process of experimentation and human practice, actively faced and sought solutions, and we also established deep friendship with many teams in this meeting. The brochure for the meetup is attached here for all those who visited our wiki to download. Meetup brochure.pdf