It has always been our pursuit to let more people participate in synthetic biology. In the inclusivity part, we have not only integrated traditional Chinese cultural elements such as Chinese shadow puppetry and paper-cutting, but also applied modern technology and We-media to break the barriers of science popularization. We hope that our efforts can help more people understand synthetic biology.
We have used AI sign language to make a accessible synthetic biology popular science video and posted them on a We-media platform.
People with hearing loss cannot normally participate in general scientific education activities. If only ordinary subtitles are added to popular science videos, they still have difficulties in understanding them. Although there is no sign language member in our team, we thought that we could use AI sign language to break the barrier for those people with hearing loss in learning synthetic biology.
In the process of research, we found the AI sign language app "Easy Sign Language" and contacted Wulala (Guangzhou) Technology Co., Ltd, the development company of the APP. They highly recognized our project and they are willing to provide relevant technical support. With their help, we successfully produced accessible science video of synthetic biology and posted them on our bilibili account (see vedio for details), opening the door to synthetic biology for the people with hearing loss.
We have posted 18 audiobooks in five languages, including Chinese (Mandarin, Teochew, Cantonese), English. These books are not only convenient for ordinary readers, especially for the visually impaired. On the WeChat public account of "Reader".
Chinese paper-cutting, cutting patterns on paper with scissors, is an art of hollowing out, and it is one of the ancient folk arts of the Han nationality in China, which can visually give people a feeling of hollowness and artistic enjoyment. We cooperated with the school's paper-cutting club and used scissors to cut out the cartoon patterns of DNA, bacteria.
Most people are unfamiliar with the shape and structure of bacteria and DNA, and paper-cutting is a good way to show it. We hope in this way, let the complex shape of bacteria and DNA more concrete.
We introduced our project and synthetic biology to the members of the school paper-cutting club and finished the paper-cutting of our project-related bacteria and DNA with them. They even cut out the pattern of our plasmid profile.
Chinese shadow puppetry, an ancient traditional folk art in China and a popular folk entertainment, we integrated Chinese traditional culture into our project.
Due to the lack of interesting forms of general knowledge preaching, synthetic biology can not be well understood and accepted by majority people. Through the light, shadow and tune of the shadow puppetry, we can better present synthetic biology and our project, so that people can learn the knowledge of synthetic biology while watching the shadow puppetry, which is exactly what we want.
Children
On the afternoon of August 23rd, we went to Liyayuan Community, Shenzhen to perfrom our shadow puppetry. After the show, we invited the children to participate in the shadow puppetry.
College Students
On October 6th, we performed Shadow puppetry in the school sport ground and attracted many college students. They improved their understanding of our project while appreciating, and we also popularized the knowledge of skin care and synthetic biology in the process.
We combined advanced synthetic biology with traditional Chinese culture, which is an interesting blend. With such innovation, it will promote Chinese traditional culture and synthetic biology to more and more people.
We explained the concept of synthetic biology to the children in urban villages through those materials we made for them, such as picture books, DNA origami and drawing.
The relatively backward conditions in urban villages make it difficult for children to receive the same education as urban children, so we have popularized science for children in urban villages to provide them the opportunity of learning synthetic biology.
We popularized synthetic biology and science to the children aged 4-12 in the urban village of Wulonggang, Baiyun District, Guangzhou on August 12th. We introduced to them what bacteria are, where we use them in our lives, and what DNA is. We taught them how to make origami in the shape of DNA to let children understand the shape and structure of it easier.
On August 15th, we conducted science education and microbial art creation for children aged 4-12 years old who had never been exposed to synthetic biology at the Question Mark Art painting institute in Wulonggang, Baiyun District, Guangzhou.
We use brochures, puzzles, monopoly game, and DNA models to promote synthetic biology to people.
Due to the limitations of audiences' education level and age, most people have little access to synthetic biology, and the same for those people around us. We can serve as a bridge to connect them with synthetic biology.
We posted a series of science popularization tweets on our WeChat official account, and attracted many students. Among the followers, there is a girl named Leyi Lin majoring in game design. Occasionally, we need a GIF picture to fit in our wiki loading webpage. After hearing that, Leyi Lin actively expressed that she is willing to offer help.
Before designing the GIF, we briefly introduced our project and relevant knowledge of synthetic biology to Leyi Lin. After that, Leyi Lin designed the corresponding GIF picture for our team based on her own understanding, which is not only beautiful, but also consistent with the theme we want to express.
Considered that our families may be lack of basic biology knowledge. It is hard for them to understand the thing that we think is simple, so we used DNA assembly models, puzzles, and brochures to make it easier for them to understand.
We created a Monopoly game themed on synthetic biology so that non-biology major people can learn about synthetic biology while playing the game.
We use the project brochure to introduce synthetic biology to people in our hometown in order to plant a seeds of synthetic biology in their hearts and ignite their interest and enthusiasm to explore synthetic biology and science.
Together with HBUT-China, we collected 500 common and specialized words related to synthetic biology that we encountered while reading literatures or other materials in iGEM journey. Finally, we made it into a words book. We also made it into a webpage and mobile App to make it more convenient for people to use.
In the entire iGEM journey, one of the difficulties we faced with is language. We had problem to understand the vocabularies while reading literature or other materials and we thought the difficult vocabularies we encounter today is likely to be the same vocabularies that future iGEMer will encounter. In this case, we hope that this words book could make it easier for them to access or memorize these words.
We recorded common and unfamiliar vocabularies that both of our teams encountered from July to October. At the same time, we adjusted and optimized this words book based on the implementation to ensure that we were not doing useless work. In this process, we also enriched our vocabulary.
We have reviewed the shortcomings in various aspects of our work and some good experiences in the entire iGEM journey. We would like to share them here.
It is inevitable that we will make mistakes, but there are mistakes that can be avoided. We hope that the future iGEMers can gain some experience from our sharing, minimize their mistakes, enjoy iGEM and complete the project more smoothly.
Good awareness of time management requires corresponding members to take responsibilities and every mission should be accomplished 2-3 days early so that there is enough time for adjustment and revision.
At the beginning of our project, we didn't control our time properly, which affected our project progress and external communications. We followed the above approaches in the mid to late stages and we are making great improvements.
Due to the impact of COVID-19, we had to communicate online during the summer, and face-to-face communication within the team was reduced, which directly led to the problem that some team members did not grasp the assigned tasks when we were preparing for the Conference of China iGEMer Community.
The measures we took: continuous online meetings and small group meetings
For example, when we were working on a children picture book, we started online meetings as soon as we started working, with the art designer while we exchanged ideas. This has greatly improved our productivity and quality.
Doing a thing successfully or not, an appropriate time is very important. According to our experience, we found "a law of contacting companies at 3pm".
In a day, the staff of a company is busiest in the morning, and needs a break at noon, and is in a general mood when they start working at 2 pm, while at 4 or 5 pm, they are close to the end of the day. 3:00 PM is a relatively relaxed time of a day, the mood of the staff is relatively good, at this time we apply for business research has the highest success rate.
We shared some nice WeChat Official Accounts we've found through the year.
The measures we took were: continuous online meetings and small group meetings
Recommend reason: We can see many latest synthetic biology papers through this Official Accounts.
Recommend reason: There are many articles on various types of synthetic biology.
Recommend reason: It contains many audiobooks specializing in synthetic biology.
Recommend reason: Use this official account to learn about the latest developments in the CCiC community.
Recommend reason: Can learn about iGEM's event and get the experience they shared.
We hope that this module can be used as a refillable module, and our future team members can continue to supply and improve it.
Sexism is everywhere, but are women really inferior to men?
Obviously not. After five rounds of team screening, we finally determined 15 contestants, including 4 male members and 11 female members. Our student cadres are three girls, and most of our instructors and even the members of the experiment team are girls. The ratio of male and female advisors has also reached 1:3.
Personal ability is not affected by gender. Both male and female members have made great contributions to our team by displaying their individualized specialties.
Can non-biological students participate in the research of synthetic biology?
Certainly. Our team is particularly special. Almost all the team members are non-biological students. Our team members come from six different majors, but we all devote ourselves to iGEM due to the same interest and love for synthetic biology and science.
We presented our project and synthetic biology through picture book for children, mask painting, and project overview. We translated the complicated and difficult words of synthetic biology into pictures and cartoons to make our project and synthetic biology easier to understand.
In our public engagement, we found that many people are enthusiastic about scientific exploration, but lack opportunities and resources to implement it. This inspired us to eliminate the physical, cultural and ecomical barriers and include more people to to participate in scientific exploration. We hope that through our efforts, they will not only hear and see synthetic biology, but also have a voice in synthetic biology.
