During the survey and interview process, we deeply recognized the importance of education and communication. We have carried out educational activities for different groups of people. Among them, students and the elderly are our focus. We also attach great importance to the issue of educational equity, and especially carry out popular science education for rural children and hearing-impaired children.
Students are the hope of the future. For science communications, it is necessary for young generation to understand how can we use synthetic biology to solve human health problem such as cancers. We have designed different lecture plans and activity forms for students of different ages, which are full of knowledge and fun. Meanwhile, we would expect that the awareness about these scientific topics can be disseminated by students to their parents, which improves the effective public broadcasting.
On the occasion of Children's Day, our team and the No. 2 Primary School in Hunnan District, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China launched an online science campaign "Exploring the Mysteries of Synthetic biology.
This popular science activity focuses on the theme of "Cancer cells and targeted therapy", and consists of three parts: online story meeting, fun competition and achievement display.
Two days before the official start, we rehearsed the event to familiarize ourselves with the operation process. Some members of the team participated in the rehearsal and provided us with comments and corrections. In order to better fit the children's understanding, we passed on knowledge by telling stories in a more acceptable and kid-friendly way.
On the day of the event, our team prepared in the college office and waited early in the online meeting room. About 1,200 children from four grades came to the meeting actively after class and took the initiative to say hello to us.
At the beginning of the activity, we introduced cancer cells, cancer targeted therapy and cancer prevention to the children through storytelling. Then, we illustrated how to design a new target medicine with synthetic biology. The children were fascinated, actively participating in the interactive questions and giving their opinions on what we were telling. "Why do cancer cells appear in the human body?" "What should we do if we have cancer cells?"... We believe that the children will have a preliminary understanding of Synthetic biology after the online story meeting, and form the prototype of the biological world in their minds.
On August 11, 2022, NEU_CHINA, DUT_China and OUC-China came to Inner Mongolia Xilinhot No.1 Junior High School and gave them a unique biology lesson.
In the afternoon, we carried out a biological knowledge competition within the scope of the Inner Mongolia Xilinhot No.1 Junior High School Grade 9. About 400 students participated in our knowledge quiz.
Our questions mainly focus on some common scientific knowledge and synthetic biology. It not only enhanced the knowledge reserves of the students, but also stimulated the students' enthusiasm for biology and synthetic biology.
The students answered the questions earnestly and enthusiastically around us after the competition. After the competition, the first, second and third prizes were selected according to the scores and awarded to them. After that, we explained the answers of the competition questions to them, and the students all said that they had gained a lot.
In order to expand our influence, we have adopted the online format of high school education. On July 25, 2022, NEU_CHINA members and the third-grade students of Fuxin Experimental Middle School gathered in the cloud, and on August 5, 2022, the NEU_CHINA team members walked into the classroom of the students of Shenyang No. 2 Middle School and carried out a biology class with the theme of "Parsing Genetic Code with synthetic biology ". There was a total of about 1,000 students watching.
Before starting the lecture, we first asked the students to fill out a questionnaire to understand their own attitudes towards transgenic technology and their knowledge of biology.
Our courses are conducted from four aspects: biology, synthetic biology, genetic modification, and targeted therapy for colorectal cancer. In the classroom, the students were active and enthusiastic.
After the lecture, we asked the students to fill out the questionnaire again to test the usefulness of the course we are taking today.
Questionnaire analysis: We collected 522 questionnaires before and after the lecture, and through the analysis, we found that the students' understanding of targeted therapy was enhanced. At the intellectual level, students can have a basic understanding of what "synthetic biology" is and what "synthetic biology" can do; Most of the students learned what "microbes" are and how they are divided into several types. The students' attitude towards genetically modified foods changed after the course.
Freshmen are the most curious group of students in college, so it is ideal to have a communication with them to spark their interests in synthetic biology. Therefore, NEU_CHINA team members held an activity to welcome freshmen in September. We made a poster illustrating what is iGEM and synthetic biology and introduced our project in comic. When they arrive, we will welcome them and illustrate these to them on site.
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We held two debate competitions in total. Firstly, we held a competition among freshmen in our college to let them freely discuss whether is engineered food is safe. After the debate, we invited teachers to comment their ideas and popularized some professional knowledge about safety problems in synthetic biology.
Then, LZU-CHINA showed great interest in this activity and wanted to join us. Therefore, we held another debate competition about bio-safety problem with their students.
See more in “Partnership”.
We have always believed every child has an equal right to education. In order to let the children in the remote mountainous areas know more about the "Synthetic biology and health", we contacted the primary schools in the mountainous areas of Changning, Yunnan and the Changning Women's Federation to prepare a simple and meaningful biology class for the children.
In this course, we have popularized the knowledge of cancer and life and health for children in a vivid way such as cartoons. After the event, we received enthusiastic feedback from the children.
iGEM is a very inclusive family. We hope to pass on our knowledge, our knowledge and our achievements to more people. We know that there are nearly 100 million people with hearing and language disabilities in the world, and we believe that they should equally enjoy the right to receive professional knowledge and communicate.
So we contacted Wuzhi Technology Co., Ltd., which studied a lightweight and convenient bracelet associated with the mobile phone app. The bracelet can translate the sign language into written language by sensing the muscle signals of hand movements. The app also has the sign language query function. 3D portrait display can also convert the written language into spoken language, but only if a real person enters the sign language and written language into the system.
September 17, 2022, after a few days of your sign language practice, we went to Wuzhi Technology Co., Ltd. to add sign language. We added more than 30 biological words, including "synthetic biology", "tumor", "targeted drug", "protein" and "bacteria". We will continue to follow up in the future, and strive to enter more meaningful words into the system, so as to help deaf mutes receive professional knowledge and professional communication normally.
From our project we have realized that what synthetic biology can do in cancer treating. So we decided to popularize more about its role among elderly people, who are at high risk of cancer.
On July 21, 2022, NEU_CHINA team members went to Xilinhot City, Xilin Gol League, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Xizitara Community. A young face appeared in the lecture hall of life health education in the elderly activity community. Here the lecture on cancer introduction for middle-aged and elderly people by NEU iGEM team members was in full swing.
At the beginning of the lecture, our members first introduced what synthetic biology is to the community and made the concept of synthetic biology easy to understand. After that, we introduced various types of cancers and how to prevent them, and the middle-aged and elderly people in the community studied and asked questions. Then, we introduced colorectal cancer and targeted drug therapy, and everyone had a new and different understanding of cancer treatment. Finally, we emphasized the important role of synthetic biology in cancer treating and used our project as an example to illustrate. After the lecture, one participant told us “Thank you for letting us know the presence of this magical thing — synthetic biology!”
To supplement our outreach and education to students, we decided to add radio broadcasts to further promote synthetic biology to high school students.
We observed that some high schools play music after class to relax their students, so we used that time to make announcement. We give them a general understanding of how synthetic biology differs from traditional biology, and to learn about some applications of synthetic biology, including some of iGEM's previous projects and our team's current project RTAC.
After the broadcast, we interviewed some students and answered questions on the school's posting, and some of them expressed their interest.
We also prepared a radio broadcast to provide to local radio stations. Unlike school radio broadcasts for a specific student audience, local radio stations have a much larger and more complex audience, including people of all ages, from all walks of life, and from all professions. Therefore, when writing radio scripts, the first thing we consider is the audience's receptiveness.
To achieve this, we avoided popularizing what is synthetic biology directly at first. Instead, we focus on things around people’s lives by conveying health tips and providing cancer prevention measures and emphasize what synthetic biology can help solving these problems in the process. We then interviewed random cab drivers who listen to the radio regularly and they said they learned some useful general knowledge about life.
WeChat official account is a convenient information sharing platform applicable to all ages. We hope to use the WeChat public account platform to provide basic information about various cancers and their treatment for those who are interested in or need help.
There are 301 followers of the public account. This year, we released more than 20 articles on the public account, which focus on the top ten cancers with the largest number of deaths in China, and describe their basic characteristics and current treatment plans. From the most to the least, they are 1.8 million lung cancer, 940,000 colorectal cancer, 830,000 liver cancer, 770,000 gastric cancer, 680,000 breast cancer, 540,000 esophageal cancer, 470,000 pancreatic cancer, 380,000 prostate cancer, 340,000 cervical cancer, and 310,000 leukemia.
After the release of the public account, we actively answered the questions of the followers in the background. We accepted some suggestions modestly, and corrected some small mistakes in time.
Cancer is a worldwide problem, NEU_ CHINA team hopes that through our explanation, more people will know about cancer and let them know that cancer is not so terrible. At the same time, we are also actively exploring our contribution to the development of cancer treatment.
After brainstorming, we thought it an ideal method to popularize synthetic biology by combining it with traditional festivals. Therefore, LZU-CHINA and we held two activities to spread synthetic biology with mooncake and lanterns.
See more in “Partnership”
Only popularizing by speaking is not enough, storing knowledge in a handbook can expand the influence of education.
From the process of interviewing, we have realized how emergent it is to popularize knowledge about intestine health. Meanwhile, we had known that there were many other teams also studying intestinal issues. Therefore, we viewed this as a good opportunity to popularize intestine health and illustrate what synthetic biology can do in this area by collaborating with other iGEMers.
We have uploaded some of the content to our social media platforms for more people to learn and study. See more in "Collaborations"