The Student Biology Interest Club, formerly known as the Biodiversity Conservation Club of Northwestern Polytechnical University, was founded in 2010. Guided by interests and hobbies, with "curiosity and sharing" as the core, the club cultivates the interest of biology lovers in natural biology knowledge, broadens their natural horizons, grasps more biological knowledge, and experiences the wonder and beauty of nature.

In this year, members of our team served as the head of the club and heads of departments, reorganizing the club. In addition, our team added the competition department as the functional department of iGEM, aiming to provide students with cutting-edge synthetic biology vision and realize the possibility of multidisciplinary communication and cooperation.

In the club recruitment meeting, we took iGEM as the theme to attract freshmen with different academic backgrounds. Students showed strong interest in synthetic biology, and we used this opportunity to closely connect students with synthetic biology. Through the daily meeting of the club, we popularized the related knowledge of synthetic biology for the students who were interested in it, and showed the fun of genetic technology route modification design for everyone. Although once we all came from different majors, but at that moment we were all immersed in the mystery of biological genes.

Various forms of activities can fully mobilize the enthusiasm of participants. While carrying out daily science popularization activities, we were also actively preparing different activities. Besides the communication and discussion with other teams, our team also added a activity combining mail exchange and charity sale. Our team and the students of iGEM Team of Northwest University and Xi 'an Jiaotong University designed the team perimeter of each team and exchanged them. Our team members attracted students' attention through a variety of peripheral products and introduced them to the related knowledge of synthetic biology.

We gave the students an initial introduction to the iGEM competition and then further introduced them to information about organic pollutants. We explained the current source distribution and harm of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, so that everyone understands that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are closely related to our lives, and they exist in all corners of their attention before. Many students showed strong interest in our project and competition, but they did not know much about synthetic biology due to professional problems. We explained to them the diverse nature of the iGEM competition and welcomed their further interest. Many students had paid attention to our official account and learned more information through our tweets. We believe that this curiosity will turn into future research motivation and bring new blood to iGEM.

We invited all interested students to fill in the postcards and put them in the mailbox. After collecting the postcards, we exchanged questions from students from different schools and replied letters. After the activity, we donated all the sales proceeds to the "Pro-Youth Charity" organization to help children swim in the ocean of knowledge with our enthusiasm and actions.

In this activity, we not only designed cultural and creative products belonging to our team, but also built rich communication with students on campus through such an interesting bridge. We will ignite the fun of youth through peripheral products, and then take us as the torchbearer. We will pass this enthusiasm to the children sincerely, so as to form an endless transmission chain. We believe that this path of knowledge and love will lead to new advances in synthetic biology.

Form: online and offline conference

Date: 19:50-20:30, October 9, 2022

Theme: For us, For water, For future

Participants:CHINA-FAFU, NPU-CHINA, UM_Macau, Nanjing_NFLS, XJTLU-CHINA, Nanjing-China and the students.

Teenagers are the main force of the future, which have unlimited possibilities. Together with CHINA-FAFU, UM_Macau and other teams, we jointly conducted an science popularization activity for the students of Wuxuan Experimental Junior High School in Laibin City, Guangxi.

Starting from the acidification of seawater, we explained the status quo of water pollution and introduced the relevant sewage treatment technology. We asked the students about their awareness of garbage classification and again emphasized the environmental protection. While introducing pollution, we also introduced the relevant information of our project to the students. The children empathized with water conservation and were curious about experiments with technology to improve the environment. We believe that this science popularization activity will plant a seed of scientific research in the children, which will lead them in a new direction.

Overview:

PAHs refer to aromatic hydrocarbons containing two or more benzene rings. PAHs are toxic, genotoxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic, which can cause multiple hazards to human body. Through the team's investigation, we know that people do not know enough about the sources and hazards of PAHs. Accordingly, with the advent of the information age, our team has made full use of the advantages of the Internet and provided science popularization activities for a wide range of students. Intention:

We hope that by promoting mutual learning and dialogue among different ages and schools, more people can understand, participate in and shape synthetic biology, so that more people can understand the source and harmfulness of PAHs. Our team can also improve our project through feedback communication.

Details:

Form: online conference and live broadcast

Date: August 13 to 14, 2022

Participants: representatives of 12 teams and students from all schools

Content:

Part1:Speech

First, we introduced synthetic biology and iGEM competition. Cells contain a variety of elements, such as biofilms, etc. They are encoded by DNA, just like "biological building blocks" spliced by DNA sequences. Synthetic biology is like a system for manipulating building blocks, which can generate new production lines in biological cells through different splicing. Then, take the place where PAHs are commonly produced in life as an example to introduce them, so as to arouse the audience's interest in our project. After that, members of the practice team introduced the source and distribution of PAHs in this science popularization activity. We also discussed the process of PAHs entering the biosphere in the environment and their relatively serious harmfulness and carcinogenicity. And then we discussed the comparison of enzyme systems. The Other participating teams introduced the basic background of their projects and the principle analysis of some frontier technologies related to synthetic biology.

Part2:Brainstorming

Next, we ask questions for students to think about, and we encourage them to brainstorm. The students discussed the hazards of PAHs. In order to combine our project with real life, we asked the audience questions and asked them to think about the places where they might be exposed to PAHs in their lives. The problem of smoking we mentioned resonated with them, and they were also shocked by the potential carcinogenicity of PAHs. We then answered the students' questions about the deeper hazards of PAHs and explained the mechanism of some hazards. And in the free question session, we patiently answered students' doubts or interests. The harmfulness of PAHs produced by smoking that we mentioned particularly resonates with students. At the brainstorming stage, we discussed issues related to gene editing and design. Starting from the characteristics of different design routes, our team demonstrated the infinite possibilities of synthetic biology to the audience. In this link, we fully stimulated the thinking of all students. Everyone discussed the common problems such as gene design. All the participants asked questions about the aspects of interest or doubts in other team projects.

Part3:Interaction

Finally, we invited students to fill in the questionnaire as feedback on the project. The results of the questionnaire show that this science popularization activity has further improved students' understanding of synthetic biology and PAHs. It also gave feedback on the acceptance of our project among the public. Through the questionnaire, we can understand that if we want to get a wider acceptance, we need to further improve the safety performance. In the process of science popularization with classmates and in the questionnaire feedback survey, we found that everyone paid close attention to the issue of biosafety. This is of great significance to whether our project can be accepted by the public. We also found this and paid special attention to security issues in the follow-up work, actively discussed security with other team members, and enriched our security design by consulting relevant materials.

Feedback and Prospect

This activity further enriched students' knowledge in all aspects. And fully mobilized everyone's prospects and enthusiasm for synthetic biology. This science popularization activity widely publicized the importance of environmental protection and the application of synthetic biology in environmental protection, which stimulated students' enthusiasm for synthetic biology. Team members also found our own shortcomings in this activity. This science popularization activity publicized the relevant knowledge of synthetic biology. Then, through our interesting project design, we stimulated the students' interest in the application of synthetic biology. At the same time, we also let everyone pay more attention to the pollution of PAHs and environmental protection.