Inspired by the sustainable development trend and with experts in soil restoration, the treatment of heavy metals, and medicine, Our iGEM team, the Devourer, determined to provide a biological repair of the soil that the lead had contaminated, which is economical, highly effective, stable, gentle, and environmental-friendly.

We utilized an environment-centered design process and identified steps to organize our missions. To ensure our project is good and responsible to the world, we need to integrate with key stakeholders throughout the project life cycle and, ultimately, the all-encompassing solutions found in the gene of poplar.

According to the National Soil Pollution Survey Bulletin jointly issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Land and Resources in 2014, the percentage of soil spots exceeding the standard was 16.1%. The portion of soil spot exceeding the average was 19.4%, 10.0%, and 10.4%, respectively, for arable land, woodland, and grassland. The percentage of moderate pollution was 2.6%, mainly caused by heavy metals. Nevertheless, most existing solutions are highly costly and not environmentally-friendly, which is also why we concentrate on biological solutions.

After learning about the disadvantages of chemical treatments, microbial treatments, and the existing products in the soil remediation market, we quickly set our sights on synthetic gene-based biological therapies. Then, with the instruction of our instructor, we pay attention to the poplar gene.

In order to find our products design direction as well as the focus of the late propaganda, we conducted two questionnaires.In the first questionnaire, we give priority to the degrees of the public’s understand of heavy metal pollution, while the second focuses on the public perception of synthetic biology products. Two surveys include more than 500 samples, and it helped us to define the business model of government bidding and focus on promoting the safety of synthetic biology products.

The survey identified mercury and lead as the two most harmful types of pollution. Lead is a frequently accepted substance in daily life and has been used for thousands of years. Unlike mercury, which is highly toxic, lead quietly affects human health.

We took the mitigation and even solution of heavy metal lead ions in the soil as the research topic. The standard familiarity of samples with lead pollution suggests that we can slightly reduce the popularization of lead pollution in the publicity and effectively propose some specific hazards to strengthen the target information but do not take this as the main body. More than 90 percent of the respondents believe that the improper discharge of wastewater from the chemical industry is one of the primary pollution sources. About 60 percent of the samples believe that the use of pesticides and fertilizers is also one of the primary pollution sources. In other words, the respondents believe that excluding residents in the polluted area, industrial and agricultural workers in the primary industry are the leading carriers of pollution. The result is consistent with the survey results: "attention should be paid to people polluted by heavy metals." Still, the latter involves the government, and ecological restoration companies should also be concerned. We will also consider this concept in the subsequent publicity practice and seek more efficient and reasonable ways.

The results showed that lead pollution affected the average growth of crops, accumulated mycin in crops, and damaged the structure and nature of crops. Lead poisoning, mental decline, neurological disorder, and fetal malformation are the main problems caused by lead pollution. This also means that our work aims to be understood and recognized by the public as beneficial to society. Some pollution problems that the public is unfamiliar with also require us to focus on science popularization when strengthening the publicity of specific hazards.

The survey result also shows knowledge about soil heavy metal pollution is not well popularized. 58.27% of the people's understanding of this knowledge is either "a little understanding" or "relatively understanding," and 18.90% do not understand. However, they have a high understanding of the local pollution situation, and the pollution degree in most areas is relatively light or severe, accounting for about 53.54%. On the other hand, 35.43% did not know the level of pollution in their area. For heavy metal damage to plants, lead and mercury are the most commonly considered to have a severe impact, with lead accounting for up to 72.22% and mercury 69.05%.

Apart from that, we also investigated the public’s opinions on knowledge of synthetic biology and preferred ways to learn to get feedback on making appropriate tools to attract attention and raise awareness. Nearly 80% of the respondents do not know enough about synthetic biology, which may be limited to concepts such as transgene. Therefore, future publicity can start from the basic concepts and underlying logic of synthetic biology and should not be too in-depth. At the same time, according to the survey results, WeChat tweets, lectures, and short videos should be the focus of publicity work. Wechat tweets and lectures should focus on professional knowledge, while short videos should focus on popular science and interest.

To sum up, here are some suggestions we conclude throughout the questionnaires. These suggestions will help us shape a better way to engage with the world.

1. Publicity channels should focus on WeChat tweets, lectures, and short videos. Wechat tweets and campus lectures should focus on professional knowledge, while short videos should focus on popular science and interest

2, the relevant knowledge should be based on the basic definition and logic and should not be too in-depth. If you can take the metaphor

3. The publicity of products should pay attention to environmental protection and controllability and clarify the wrong traditional concepts or misunderstandings of users.

4. Product characteristics should put efficiency and environmental protection first and ensure that other land activities (such as farming) are not affected while treating

5. The knowledge about heavy metal pollution in soil needs to be popular

From the questionnaire, we found a lot of suggestions that can help us better prove to the public that our project is beneficial. Therefore, we also plan a variety of publicity channels to connect with the world. In terms of publicity, due to the epidemic's impact, we plan to carry out promotion and education through various online channels.

To better promote the launch, we interviewed Ms. X, an Internet celebrity with a more than one million fan base. In terms of channel operation, she also gave us a lot of suggestions on operation ideas and how to obtain traffic and content.

Content appeal: Quality content, post-editing

Activity attraction: The comment section draws people and gives things away

Internet thinking

User Thinking: What can you do for your users by standing in their shoes

Flow thinking: Monetize with the flow, quality content (promotion activities)

Iterative thinking: Keep your products and content updated.

Data thinking: background detection data, according to the promotion of video.

Fixed point release: release in batches

Keep number: Use the account to watch more videos, don't send videos directly with the registration.

For example laboratory funny daily, scientists, promotion, photo, popularization of knowledge, neighborhood

Based on her suggestions, we selected two publicity channels, the WeChat official account, and the Douyin official account, to publicize our project to the public. Since establishing our WeChat public account, WeChat general account has gained nearly 200 fans. Meanwhile, our Douyin app has accumulated more than 1,000 followers. In addition, we collected fans through the circle of friends, classmates, teachers, and parents, which laid a solid foundation for our subsequent publicity and education to the public.

We are also rich in content. WeChat official accounts and Douyin official accounts are not only platforms to show our experimental records but also necessary means for us to popularize the knowledge of synthetic biology, new biological technologies, team image, and attitude. Among them, the highest WeChat official account post reading volume was more than 500 times per article; The most viewed Douyin video has been viewed more than 2,000 times.

In addition, to show a more popular form of interaction, and considering the inclusion of educators, we also held a live online lecture, telling students, parents, and teachers about the origin of synthetic biology, its development, and its application. At the same time, we also introduced the uniqueness and importance of our project, which calls for more attention to and the correct understanding of synthetic biology. As high school students, much of our knowledge comes from our parents and teachers, so they need an accurate understanding of synthetic biology. Therefore, they should have more opportunities to speak out in synthetic biology. Only when the people who transfer knowledge to us understand synthetic biology correctly can more students understand and pay attention to synthetic biology. The lecture was also very effective. As our team members are from all over the country, we attracted more than 100 parents and teachers from all over the country to participate. We plan to hold a similar online event every other month to let more students, parents, and teachers know about synthetic biology.

We also created posters and videos, worked with other iGEM teams, and promoted synthetic biology inside high schools to attract more young people to know iGEM and biology. We have also designed offline exhibitions and plan to pilot them in schools. However, we have not carried out large-scale offline exhibition activities due to the epidemic prevention and control policy. Still, the design manuscript and activity planning map have been completed.

At the end of the online lecture, our team also held a live charity fundraising activity to promote and sell our peripheral products to the attendees. We plan to donate all the funds raised to public welfare organizations so that our team can better contribute to the development of humankind and the realization of shared happiness. We set up a WeChat small store platform to better fund raising management. We have received more than 2500 RMB in donations after the charity fundraiser. The money will be donated to public welfare organizations.

To better understand whether there will be a lot of risks in implementing our project, we interviewed Dr. Wang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. After we introduced the project, Dr. Wang thought that our project was also very innovative and environmentally significant. He suggested that we could further cut the pollen of plants by transgenic means in concrete implementation so that the plants would not be scattered everywhere in the wind, reducing the risk of heavy metal ion transmission. In addition, Dr. Wang also agreed with our choice of poplar because poplar is a model plant and an actual project that can be implemented. Furthermore, the genome is simple and easy to study.

Furthermore, the poplar was the first plant cracked by Chinese scientists, so it was easier to understand and learn. Dr. Wang also explained how to deal with lead-bearing trees in the future. Because lead ions cannot be degraded, trees containing lead ions can be further processed into the wood, such as raw materials for plywood.

To better connect our project with the public and society in the future, we also interviewed Tao, a lawyer in the biological industry. Tao believes that the development of synthetic biology must consider ethics and safety. Although the basis of genetic modification is genetic engineering to change the original gene, genetically modified food or technology needs industry supervision to be reassured. China also has a biosafety law and agricultural GMO safety management regulations to regulate GMO technology better. Tao also believes that people need to know about synthetic biology technology. Now human beings are under tremendous pressure on environmental resources. In the future, humans may use synthetic biology to provide relatively safe, high-tech food. If the public does not know about it, it will become insecure and reluctant to use products developed by synthetic biology.

In terms of social popularization, Lawyer Tao also provided us with feedback. He believed that we could conduct science popularization from the scientific aspect through scientific mechanisms and application scenarios. Reduce public rejection of synthetic biology by popularizing science. In the future, relevant biological companies, national agencies, and non-profit organizations can also hold activities to spread knowledge.

According to Lawyer Tao's feedback, we conducted our online lecture and actively contacted public welfare organizations to lay the groundwork for future publicity. As of today, we have been in contact with Lion Clubs International. We planned to hold an offline public welfare activity in late August. Unfortunately, we have had to suspend our activities due to epidemic control restrictions. But we have been in good contact with Lion Clubs International.

Lions Clubs International, founded in 1917 by Melvin Jones, is the largest service organization in the world. It has 48,000 chapters and 1.5 million members. Members are distributed in 209 countries and territories and are headquartered in the United States. The English name of LIONS International is Lions, where the "L" stands for Liberty, "I" for Intelligently, "O" for Our, "N" for Nation, and "s" for Safety. Together, these letters became LIONS, meaning "lions" in English, and the group became known as the Lions Club. Its full name is "Lions Club International."

To sum up, human practices activities proves our project is good and responsible for the world while we use those feedback from public to better shape and implement our project to the real world.