Opinion Collection

People from different backgrounds may have different levels of understanding of synthetic biology. Therefore, before holding events, we firstly organized a questionnaire to evaluate the levels of people's understanding of synthetic biology, so as to determine how our activities can be carried out and which form can be widely accepted by the population. In total, we collected 719 questionnaires, and those data helped us a lot subsequently.

1. Assess the Level of Understanding of Synthetic Biology in the Masses

According to the result, we found that age, education, and different professional backgrounds were the main differentiating factors for people's understanding of synthetic biology. Children are in the exploratory stage of science and most of them do not have a clear concept of synthetic biology. As education proceeds, people will gradually form and deepen their understanding of synthetic biology and reach the top at university stage. There is also a significant difference between academics in science-related majors and those who do not.

At the same time, the data shows that most people hold a positive attitude towards the rational use of synthetic biology in daily life, believing that the application of synthetic biology can help improve living standards and solve problems in daily life. While others have also expressed their concerns about the side effects of synthetic biology in environment and health.

In order to help the public better understand synthetic biology and help mitigate prejudices and unreasonable concerns, we decided to divide the population into children, college students, and the general public so that we could organize different activities to improve our work efficiency.

2. Determine How and in What Format Our Education and Communication Activities Are Conducted

As for children, since they do not yet have a clear understanding of science, we planned to commit to enlightenment education, and intrigue their enthusiasm for exploration by designing more interesting lectures, games, etc. For college students, they generally have better acceptance and understanding, so we choose more knowledge-based approaches, such as training and publicity. For the public, we mainly focused on the media and the way of life contact, in order to popularize the functions and roles of synthetic biology more widely.

Summary

This questionnaire played an important role in determining the direction of education and communication of different groups and the ways to achieve the aim. After this thorough investigation, we started our journey in this season.

About Children

1. Nanjing S&T Museum

The Nanjing S&T Museum is a gathering place for curious children. During the summer vacation, the Nanjing S&T Museum welcomes thousands of children every day. We decided to give them a special experience there. We contacted Ms. Lv Qing in advance, the person in charge of the Nanjing S&T Museum. She liked our ideas, prepared qualified classrooms for our activity with pleasure, and broadcasted for us in advance on the day of the event.

On July 30, 2022, we walked into the Nanjing S&T Museum. With the help of staff in the Nanjing S&T Museum, the children had been gathered in the classroom and can't wait to get ready to start. There, we carried out special synthetic biology classes for children and teenagers. We took them to learn about the structure of plants, instructed them to use microscopes to observe cells, and to make flower jellies. Children were full of energy and curiosity, and they also showed extraordinary hands-on ability under our guidance.

Nanjing S&T Museum

The event lasted for a day. In the end, we received unanimous praise from children and their parents. The children commented that it was interesting to learn about the world at the cellular and molecular level, and synthetic biology sounded like an amazing field of study. Through this feedback, we realized that educating children in science at an early age and developing their interests is critical to their future. By holding such activities, we believe that we had planted a seed for the exploration of synthetic biology in their young hearts. We were pleased that children were willing and motivated to learn about synthetic biology, and these activities had served our purpose successfully.

2. Comic Brochure

Through contact with children, we found that vivid animated images can attract children's attention more. What’s more, we also hoped that the teaching process can be recorded and passed on in an appropriate way, so that more people can learn about our project and iGEM. So, our art crew created a cute comic book. The comics were set against our subject, aiming to raise awareness of chronic hepatitis and bring attention to the health effects of bad habits. Comic books are not only distributed to children, but also play a role in other aspects of our education and communication.

As we expected, readers commented that our comics looked intuitive and was explicit and more fun than reading a lot of texts. This also encouraged us to constantly evaluate and improve our follow-up educational thinking.

About the Public

1. An Original Sitcom - "Liver Troubles"

In order to let more people understand the significance of synthetic biology and promote our subject, we edited a short family sitcom, "The Liver Troubles". All team members in NAU-CHINA 2022 participated in the production. The video was about the impact of low-quality life on chronic hepatitis. We uploaded the video on one of the main online platforms in China.

We ended up with 40,000+ views in total. We were pleasantly surprised by the number of viewers who said they could feel our efforts and wanted more relevant content, and tried to give us suggestions while understanding us.

2. Bilibili Channel

Bilibili is a YouTube-like cultural community with a high concentration of Chinese younger generation. We created a channel which aimed at promote synthetic biology on Bilibili, including some self-made vlogs, animated illustrations and lectures recordings so that more people can access relevant knowledge through the Internet.

Bilibili Channel

3. WeChat Public Account

WeChat official account is another platform built on WeChat. It has millions of flows and support a wide range of applications. We continued to post science articles about synthetic biology on our official account to raise public awareness of synthetic biology and got a good response.

WeChat Public Account

4. Community Pet Clinic

In addition to using the media, we also actively called on our classmates and friends to join our activities to improve our influence. We took part in the community work with students majoring in animal medicine to provide residents with free pet clinics, and provided the public with synthetic biology theme products designed by us. It aimed to help good causes by offering unique charity booths to the public.

Community Pet Clinic

During this activity, we disseminated our idea of the chronic hepatitis test kit to the public, hoping to let everyone learn about the role of our kit and inform them of the application of synthetic biology in daily life. Many residents, even those elderly ones, expressed interests in our design, since the incidence of chronic hepatitis is also age-related. They also shared their concerns about their health after the event. Their comment was very important to us, both as a booster for us to continue to improve our work, and as an affirmation of the direction we are striving for.

5. Lab safety Sign Language Video

We also tried to communicate with more inclusive groups. During this season, we reached out to members of the Sign Language Association and invited them to guide our members in learning and filming a video of laboratory safety principles in sign language. The process of learning touched us deeply, because it triggered the soft side of our hearts straightforwardly, and allowed us to make a different sound while in silence.

Lab Safety Sign Language Video-cut

The video caused warm response in the online community. Crowds of people commented that it is delightful that a student team tried to focus on the needs of special populations. Although the video was short, we believed that its meaning went beyond itself. It indicated that we firstly tried in a rarely touched area, where we did our best to contribute to our society in diversified dimensions.

About College Students

1. ICII

ICII is a public non-profit event organized by the students of the participating teams. This year the event was hosted by NAU-CHINA. The purpose of this event is to bring China to the world iGEM competition and let iGEM enter more universities in China. Teams from 12 universities participated in this two-month science popularization campaign. We organized activities in three parts, including online popular science lectures, poster and brochure, and urban publicity videos.

Online Science Lectures:

All the teams conducted online live broadcasting on Bilibili, delivering different lectures related to synthetic biology and their own projects.This event not only allowed researchers who are interested in synthetic biology to understand its charm and potential advantages, but also attracts more friends to hear about synthetic biology and iGEM.

2. Information Corridor

"CCB Cup" The 8th China International Internet + College Students Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition is one of the largest competitions held for college students in China. This year, the Jiangsu Provincial tournament was hosted by Nanjing Agricultural University, with nearly 700 teams from different universities and disciplines participating. We believed that this is an excellent opportunity to share knowledge of synthetic biology with college students, looking forward to creating different idea sparks through the collision of multiple disciplines. We set up an information corridor to show illustrate the applications and contributions of synthetic biology through posters, brochures and lectures, and conducted random interviews and questionnaires for participating teams.

Fortunately, the result was better than we expected, and we even achieved a win-win for each other. Most of those competitors were elites which had a professional background and independent innovation ability. They could quickly grasp the key points of the knowledge we described and give valuable opinions to projects they were interested in. Not surprisingly, our project caught their attention, and some teams said they were inspired by our project and planned to focus on this field in the future. It was worth mentioning that the competitors from Nanjing Agricultural University had a profound and valuable exchange with us, and their suggestions crucially advanced our work.

3. Mid-Autumn Festival Activities

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional Chinese festival. During this festival, people will take part in traditional activities such as viewing the moon, eating moon cakes, guessing lantern riddles, and pitch-pots. We held a special promotional event related to Mid-Autumn Festival in Nanjing Agricultural University. We integrated traditional activity of guessing lantern riddles into publicity and education, and attracted students by playing the game. Participants were taught the concept of synthetic biology, filled out questionnaires, and did some interviews. Through such kind of education, every participant further felt the charm of biology. We also prepared moon cakes as gifts for them and our synthetic biology theme products to encourage their participation.

Previous Next

After the pleasant sunset, the Mid-Autumn Festival activities came to an end. Generally, about 200 students participated in our activities, and our interesting designs thrilled them a lot. This event was fruitful, as many students came to learn about the contribution of synthetic biology. The design of our project were eye-catching too, and they also paid attention to this idea. What’s more, some professional postgraduates reminded us that for the cause of chronic hepatitis, although many people knew that bad habits could bring harm, it was difficult for them to exercise restraint and adaptation when they think they were seemingly healthy. They suggested us that we could try to find other related factors other than physical health factors to enhance the warning effects.

After that, we had a deep thinking and had a key communication with the team OHIA. With the help of the OneHealth concept, we found a good solution and expanded our influence.

4. On-campus Activities

Step 1: On-campus Publicity Meeting and Competition (Mini iGEM)

As in previous years, we held an iGEM on-campus competition (mini iGEM). This event was organized by the NAU-CHINA team for all students interested in iGEM. We conducted a series of trainings on iGEM and synthetic biology, and finally requested competitors to recruit teams to participate in mini iGEM. During this period, participants were asked to complete all contents of the entire project, including models, wikis, human practices, etc.

On-campus Publicity Meeting

Step 2: Evaluation and Selection

During the competition, we will give them advice and guidance and then we will consider the selection of the 2022 NAU-CHINA team members based on their performance.

Part of Publicity Materials