Synthetic biology, as a relatively new field of science, is generally not involved in the curriculum of students who have not yet stepped into tertiary education. In one of our interviews with Professor Yan Wu, an experienced educator in biology from Xu Zhou No.1 Middle School, we learned that it was not uncommon for synthetic biology to be conceptually confused. She suggested that her students could not distinguish between synthetic biology and genetic engineering. Another educator, Professor Meng Han, stated that inexperienced educators often find it challenging to explain molecular genetics terms such as promoter, RBS, and plasmid. He also indicated that related subjects are usually skipped in primary and high school education due to their abstract nature. Having identified the challenge, we decided to cooperate with educators to organize online and offline programs for both primary school and high school students.

The values that were instilled into the summer program include providing opportunities for students to get to know synthetic biology hands-on and solve the relevant problems using synthetic biology methods. We referred to the curriculums of different educational institutions and set our objectives for students of varying educational backgrounds accordingly.

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In terms of younger children, we decided to cooperate again with the Dahezhen Primary school of Shaanxi. On July 1st, we paid a visit to the school and spent a week with the educators and students there. The program was divided into three sections: molecular genetics 101 (Day1-Day3), introduction to synthetic biology (Day4-Day6), and questions and reflections (Day7). Students were encouraged to interrupt if they had questions during class or come during office hours, which generally started at 6 p.m. and lasted until 7: 30 p.m.

In order for the students to visualize the biological structure of genetic material, we brought models into the classroom and took up questions as students assembled the models themselves. We also demonstrated how protein is synthesized through models that were attached to the blackboard by magnets. Meanwhile, we managed to close the gap before introducing synthetic biology to the students by explaining concepts that they had not learned before. At the end of the session, we organized seminars during which students got to brainstorm what they would do if they became synthetic biologists someday.

Our team attending the conference on mitochondria

Children learning the structure of different genetic materials

Brainstorming from schoolchildren

Our demonstration of protein synthesis

Screenshots of our online program

Part of our simulation for the procedure of PCR

Our questionnaire on the quality of the lecture

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We held 3 educational lectures on synthetic biology in total. Each lecture lasted around 30 minutes and centered around different aspects of synthetic biology, including the major concepts of the subject, its applications, and the new findings in this area. They took place in February, April, and August, respectively. After several discussions, we decided to make our PPT in Chinese so that it could be more accessible to the general public.

The first lecture was held online for students in our university. We introduced the iGEM competition and our community at school, the NJMU SynBio Community. After that, we talked about the central concepts of synthetic biology and encouraged more students to join us in the community.

Our first lecture

On April 30th, we cooperated with iGEM WHU-China and held the second lecture for students of both Nanjing Medical University and Wuhan University. We tried to convey the concept of synthetic biology using our projects this year as examples.

Our second lecture

In the third lecture, we cooperated with BUCT-China and several other iGEM teams to educate the public on synthetic biology. We discussed the possibility of engineering living therapeutics with synthetic biology and shared our understanding of new findings in this field. The articles that we referred to would be included in the reference section at the bottom of the page.

Our third lecture

Similar to our education on ASD, we designed a handbook to educate the public on synthetic biology. We chose to make a handbook instead of a picture book because we wanted to include more information in it. Our advisor, Professor Xingyin Liu, assisted in revising the handbook by checking the accuracy of the information. Moreover, we managed to make the delivery of the message relatively accessible by reading the script to our family members who are new to this field.

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We founded a community for SynBio lovers within the campus. We would hold meetings regularly and hold extracurricular activities depending on the theme of the month. Hopefully, with our efforts, more people will be attracted to this field and make their contributions.

Inspiration

Objectives

Execution

We decided to introduce our program mainly to schools in more distant areas of China, where autistic children are more likely to end up in mainstream schools. (See our discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of mainstreaming here. Professor Xuemei Wang, who has been working as a tutor for more than 30 years, and our PI, Xingyin Liu, instructed us to employ strategies to encourage active learning. Therefore, we designed engaging questions before each lecture and altered them based on different developmental stages. We also encouraged group discussion in the hope that the children would learn from and be inspired by each other.

Another challenge was to help children show their respect to autistic people if they ever encountered one. With the help of our advisor, we chose to first satisfy their curiosity by answering their questions and, second, give them some idea of how we would treat autistic people through pre-recorded role-playing. In these role plays, we tried to explain their obsessions, the necessity of stimming for them, the things that might get them overwhelmed, and how they would mask to avoid being different. Analogies were applied in our lectures as well and helped us deliver the concepts more easily.

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You can download the PDF by clicking "Download" in the upper right corner after it opened.

PDF: Our objectives for students in different age groups👈

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Pictures of our online educational program

During each of our lectures, we made sure that we created open dialogues with our audiences. To achieve this, we allotted sufficient time for brainstorming and exchanging ideas with their friends. It was reassuring that most of the students we talked to expressed their hope to help children with ASD and spread the idea of neurodiversity.

Brainstorming: what I learned and what would I do to help autistic children

Together, we organized three online courses in the Red Star Primary school of Henan, the Duanwan Primary School of Henan, and the Dahezhen Primary school of Shaanxi respectively. Each program lasted a week and consisted of 6 lectures and more than 20 interactive activities. With the support of our advisor and the educators in these three schools, we were able to engage over 120 students in our program.

Modification

At the end of each lecture, we sent questionnaires to the students to evaluate our lectures and modify them according to their suggestions.

Before delivering the lectures, we had feared that the materials about the symptoms of ASD would be too complicated for young children. Their feedback, however, reassured us as most of them achieved the objectives. We were glad that most students found our lectures clear and understandable.

We encouraged educators to complete the questionnaires for younger children in case they could not write certain characters and also finish one themselves to share their comments. One of the educators suggested that we could wait for another 2 minutes after asking if there were any questions. He told us that children generally spend a longer time processing information, and some might be shy to share their questions right afterward.

Our PI indicated that when designing materials for older children, we could have discussed more of the scientific aspect of ASD. She showed us how she would explain new findings in the treatment of ASD to her own child, and we were greatly inspired.

Unfortunately, we did not complete an analysis of the questionnaires we collected due to time constraints.

Feedback questionnaire

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Inspiration

In 2022, when Covid-19 remains a threat, masks are something we get to use frequently. During our visit to the Children's Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, we noticed that the children there were wearing masks with images of birds, flowers, and clouds. We realized that these masks were soothing to the hospitalized children and encouraging to all of us. As a result, we decided to organize a contest that centers on masks to promote awareness of ASD and call for more respect for autistic people.

Execution

Regarding the source of the original materials, we cooperated with the School of Pediatrics at Nanjing Medical University, and the latter were enthused to provide 200 masks for our contest. We also got in touch with printing companies to help print participants' work on the masks. The School of Pediatrics agreed to provide financial support for the printing and our prizes as well.

In terms of safety and sustainability, we contacted several printing companies to choose to cooperate with the most environmentally friendly one based on three standards: the composition of dye, the printing procedures, and the filter system. We also ensured that the masks functioned properly in the presence of the print.

The contest lasted two weeks, and we received 158 designs in total. The 42 masks left were sent out to volunteers for Coronavirus testing after the contest.

Works of the participants of the contest

Inspiration

Autism is something that many people know about. However, misunderstandings are not uncommon. For example, some people think that autistic people speak in a monotone and constantly go on and on about the same topic. Some may also consider them socially awkward or lacking empathy and humor. These are, in fact, incorrect impressions of people with ASD.

Common misunderstandings about autistic people

Execution

After spending three weeks at Star of the Sea, an institution for autistic people, and contacting educators at other institutions, we decided to make a picture book about ASD. We also referred to literature when illustrating common traits of autistic people. Meanwhile, we worked with parents of autistic children in order to better deliver the message of neurodiversity.

The picture book is accessible on our homepage.

Beginning in 2008, World Autism Awareness Day has been observed on the 2nd of April. It emphasizes the importance of helping people with autism improve their quality of life to live a meaningful life as an essential part of society. This year, team NJMU-China held a series of educational activities on April 2nd with the aim of spreading awareness about people with autism, recognizing their rights, and encouraging people around us to join us in helping them live meaningfully. Our theme this year is “Things to do on World Autism Awareness Day”, which is intended to inspire people to think of things they could do to help people with ASD.

We designed posters about ASD and encouraged other students to join us. Posters were uploaded in the WeChat group chat of our community, the NJMU SynBio Community, to make for timely sharing and conserve printing materials.

Our poster on World Autism Awareness Day

This year, we chose to partner with iGEM WHU-China, who focuses on the treatment of depression. Together, we organized four lectures online, educating university students on MDD, ASD, psychological and neurological disorders, and the human brain as a whole.

In the first lecture, our team shared some new findings concerning the pathogenesis of ASD, including both genetic and metabolic factors. We specifically discussed the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in the development of ASD. In the second lecture, we invited Professor Zhilin Wang, a professor from the Jiangsu Research Center for Mental Health, to offer us some advice on maintaining a good mindset. He also talked about the similarities and differences between psychological and neurological disorders, giving listeners a better understanding of ASD and MDD. At the end of the lecture, Professor Wang introduced the idea of neurodiversity and expressed his wish for more respect for autistic people on this special day.

After that, team WHU-China informed listeners of the possible causes, symptoms, and treatment of MDD and called for mental health awareness. They also invited Yaya, who is the co-founder of Sailing through Adolescence, an organization dedicated to supporting young people with depression, to join us in the fourth lecture. Yaya educated us on MDD from a medical perspective, discussing the neurological factors behind each disorder.

At the end of the lectures, we handed out questionnaires and reflected on the content and delivery of our lecture to improve and modify. We hope that through the four lectures, more people will love, support, and respect people with ASD and MDD.

Screenshots of the lectures

A week before the activities, we designed team merch in the form of canvas bags, baseball hats, phone stands, and mousepads. We handed them out at Shuren Square, the largest square in our university, and made an effort to explain the moral of each merch during lunch breaks.

Screenshots of the lectures

With the help of our PI, Professor Xingyin Liu, we wrote educational articles on the team's WeChat official account (@ NJMU iGEM). We also posted pictures of posters and the team merch on other social media platforms, including Instagram (@ njmu_china) and Twitter (@ NJMU-China).

Below is the link to our WeChat official account article. The English version can be accessed through the second link.

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Star of the Sea Children Development Center is a non-profit rehabilitation organization that provides professional assessment, rehabilitation training, early education, and support for children with autism, as well as training and group activities for parents of autistic children. Besides a week there in March, we spent another two weeks at the institution during summer break.

We identified the need for digital assistance and helped build an online archive for the recordings of word cards and story books. Some of our team members also aided in the establishment of a database for autistic children at the institution. In the second week, after 7 days of observation and training, we were allowed to assist the educators during classes, helping autistic children with their cognitive ability.

In total, 2 weeks and 55 hours were spent at the institution. We also managed to design or participate in 10 activities with or for the children.

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Although the voluntary work at Star of the Sea may not strictly fit into the Education and Communication section, it offered us an opportunity to have a more comprehensive understanding of the symptoms and behavioral therapy of ASD, enabling us to better educate the public on the disorder. Furthermore, it was a platform for us to talk to people who have real experiences with ASD, through which we could identify the real problem and promote our project accordingly. We consider it a type of education for ourselves.

Similar to our projects in the previous two years, we organized a program, Learn with Us, for younger students in the university to get to know scientific research hands-on. Most of us had the experience of being at a loss when we were new to scientific research, and to make things better for these students, we compiled a brochure on scientific research skills. In this brochure, we discussed what we would usually do at different stages of a project and shared helpful tools in scientific research as well.

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Xinyuan Wang, the vice leader of our team, offered to give us a lecture on laboratory safety before we conducted our experiments. We also invited other students in our university who were new to scientific research to join us in the lecture. This is also discussed in the Integrated Human Practice section of our wiki.

Xinyuan Wang delivering the lecture on laboratory safety

Since our platform is based on the State Key Laboratory of reproductive medicine of Nanjing Medical University, we cooperated with them and held a laboratory open day on May 29th. 90 students joined us in the activityand learned about some commonly applied approaches in scientific research. Participants were able to take a close look at all of thehighly-precise equipment such as two-photon microscopy. Research strategies were also discussed in the lectures and every participanthad the chance to operate after training.

May 29th Laboratory Open Day

Pictures always hold us captive for they lie in all our languages. As a result, we parted with the Jiangsu Society for Microbiology, the R·Lab, the School of Basic Medical Science of Nanjing Medical University, and the State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Medicine of Nanjing Medical University to show the beauty of microbiology through pictures. Together, we presented an art exhibition in two buildings on campus. With the aim of promoting gut microbiology and gut health, we exhibited 72 drawings, explained the meaning behind each painting to visitors, and encouraged them to take down their feelings afterward. We were glad to see that our exhibits took the fancy of the visitors and gave them food for thought!

The art exhibition on gut microbiology and gut health

Microbiology is an indivisible part of synthetic biology. In order to educate children on microbiology in a friendly way, we designed and made 9 puzzles on different microbes. Puzzles of the brain and the gut are also included and were used to introduce the microbiota-gut-brain axis to the children. Around 20 children from surrounding communities did the jigsaw puzzle with us during our visits.

Puzzles on microbiology