Thinker-ShenZhen  ChDeHome

In order to spread intriguing knowledge of synthetic biology, disseminate our project and gain feedback from various groups of people, Thinker-Shenzhen commences with educational activities.

We designed and wrote a picture book for kindergarten children to eliminate their prejudice against of patients with dermatomycosis and introduced them to synthetic biology. Giving online lectures to kindergarten children, elementary students and high schoolers respectively with different iGEM teams, we are in want of arousing their interest in synthetic biology.

Targeting young children, we designed and created a picture book concerning dermatological science and synthetic biology to help them gain a preliminary understanding of the subject and encourage them to eliminate prejudice against children with skin diseases.

Children tend to mock and isolate others for their physical differences, which includes children with fungal skin diseases. If this behavior is not interfered and properly educated, confusion and prejudice would be deeply rooted in their naïve minds and. If this continues, they might start to exclude anyone who is different from them, which would hinder social harmony and stability. Therefore, we created a picture book to subtly educate young children: you should understand and include, not laugh or exclude, others who are different from you. Taking into account young children’s ability to comprehend and accept, we drew a cute and simple, but, at the same time, edifying picture book, telling the story of a young boy with fungal skin disease who transferred to a new school. Why did he suffer from prejudice? How was this resolved? We believe that, by reading this picture book, children would be able to gradually acquire the ability to understand others, so to make the world more inclusive.

VIEW Picture Book PDF

In addition to picture books, we also gave online presentations on synthetic biology and dermatology to kindergartens and elementary school children. Using vivid and cartoonish PowerPoints and distributing stickers designed by ourselves, we stimulated their interest in synthetic biology significantly. Considering the limited knowledge of young students on the subject of synthetic biology and their ability to comprehend information, we choose to use a large number of pictures and a very small amount of text to ensure there is no difficulties in understanding the presentation. We used common and appropriate language to introduce the principles, underlying microorganisms, and meanings of synthetic biology to the student audiences and that not all types of bacteria are harmful. As long as we utilize them properly, they could be beneficial for human use. At the same time, we emphasized the importance of hygiene and health, reminded students to wash their hands frequently, and advised them to exercise regularly to improve health and immunity.

We hope that, through this lecture, we can plant the seeds of synthetic biology in their minds. We wish that young students would understand that the world is not black and white. Everything has two sides, including bacteria. We also care for their health and educate them to establish an awareness of good hygiene.

We hosted a synthetic biology lecture online with Thinker-China, introducing the history and current situation for the field of synthetic biology, from the origin, to the development and obstacles in the way, to the application of synthetic biology in the real world.

Our poster

Due to the pandemic restrictions, we had to postpone and conduct the lectures online.

Online lecture

Questions after the lecture

Questions after the lecture

We received a lot of questions after the lecture, showing interest and enthusiasm, which made our team really feel that we triggered the audience’s curiosity for this subject. High school students are the most creative and passionate people. They could be interested in a variety of things. What our team of iGEMers do is ignite their enthusiasm to explore the mysteries of living organisms through vivid and engaging stories. We hope to help them realize that synthetic biology could be applied to solve the problems around us, from treating diseases to improving materials.

We also gave a lecture on synthetic biology with another iGEM team, SMS_Shenzhen, in Shenzhen Middle School. Taking into account that the academic pressure of high school freshmen is relatively heavy, we chose to conduct the lecture in a relaxed and stress-free way and introduced information regarding synthetic biology, such as the central dogma and the application of synthetic biology, through simple pictures and text, hoping to arouse their interest in this subject. Our presentation suggests that, no matter from a utilitarian point of view of for passion, synthetic biology could enrich knowledge reserves and enhance the connection between different subjects, including biophysics, biochemistry, molecular biology, and cell biology. These knowledges could be integrated to solve real-life problems, including medical health, biosafety, materials, etc. Additionally, we also briefly introduced some challenges and goals in the development of the field of synthetic biology, revealing that this is not a smooth process. We anticipate that more aspiring young people would start to devote into iGEM and synthetic biology with enthusiasm and determination.

Our team held synthetic biology lectures with other iGEM teams, including the Tianjin University team (TJUSLS_China) and the Yizhuang Middle School Team(BJEA_China), to spread the knowledge of synthetic biology in different regions of the world, making it more influencial worldwide. Our online lectures are conducted by three teams, and the practical applications and future challenges of synthetic biology in different fields are introduced in detail. We explained that synthetic biology could play a role in energy, cosmetics, medicine, the environment, consuming, agriculture, etc., illustrating its evident importance. We also took into account the different languages our audience speak and chose to use a bilingual PowerPoint to provide a better experience for all audiences.

Our three teams hosted lectures online to the public, covering different groups of people, languages, and regions, providing a high-quality and exciting sharing session, exploring in more detail the application and significance of synthetic biology for the general public. We hope to inspire to bring new ideas to the field.

We participated in the 9th CCiC, which is the largest iGEM conference in China, and conducted project exchanges with national iGEM teams online, showing our projects, experiments, human practices, etc. We received many valuable suggestions on how improve on our project and contacted many like-minded teams through CCiC for further collaborations.