Overview
This is the part of our iGEM work aiming to communicate with the public, obtaining information and inspiration about relevant contents and exchanging useful knowledge and skills with them. We were achieving our goals through cartoon lab manuals, social medias and online and offline public activities. In the science popularization activity, we found that the public has a basic understanding of alkaline soil (i.e., soil salinization) and antibiotics and the public are paying more attention to those things but not deep into them. Therefore, we planned to spread related scientific knowledge through various forms, such as WeChat public science, science popularization, video explanation and etc. We believe that with our science radiation, people are learning more about biology, and see more potential of synthetic biology.
1 Cartoon lab manuals
Four members from our team participated in the making process of the cartoon handbook with members from IvyMaker-China and Worldshaper-HZ. This manual includes general introduction of our experiment equipment and how to use it correctly. This handbook provides a good channel for the public to know professional scientific equipment in a simple and easy-understanding way.
Worldshaper-NJBIOX got the inspiration from the cartoon manual that we made, they decided to make a cartoon manual as well. Our team participated into the making process and with our previous experience, the assignment was finished smoothly and successfully. By using this manual, the process of promotion became much more interesting and easy understanding for the audience.
2 Online streaming education:
2.1 In July：
Worldshaper-NJBIOX got the inspiration from the cartoon manual that we made, they decided to make a cartoon manual as well. Our team participated into the making process and with our previous experience, the assignment was finished smoothly and successfully. By using this manual, the process of promotion became much more interesting and easy understanding for the audience.
2.2 In August:
On Aug.13th, we hold an online streaming collaborated with Worldshaper-NJBIOX. During the process of meeting, we introduced our group members and the projects we are working on now to the public. We also invited Huang Zhijun, the ambassador of iGEM in Asian area, to introduce more information about the history and the development of iGEM. We discussed the components of our teams, topics that we chose and the background of our experiments. Our wet team leader Tian Yunzheng disseminated the knowledge about probiotics, which is closely related to our project topic. At the end of the streaming, we made interactions with the audience and all of the participators gained a lot. By holding this online streaming education activity, the audience got an opportunity to comprehend the knowledge and idea about synthetic biology and our teammates got some valuable reflections and suggestions about our projects. We hope that we can contribute to the promotion of iGEM and synthetic biology, and our project can get public recognition.
3 Science popularization activity:
3.1 In August:
On Aug.14th, our team and Worldshaper-HZ hold a science publicity activity in China Hangzhou Low Carbon Science and Technology Museum. After the introduction of two teams, we attracted a lot kids’ attention by introduction of what is the synthetic biology. We explained what it is in an easy-understanding way and thus aroused their interests to biology, hopefully stimulated the ability of challenging themselves as well.
We carried out three parts of activities: DNA soft sweets making, banana DNA extraction and fluid drawing. During those activities, we encouraged children to create their own DNA using their rich potential creativities and the ability of observing the small things around the world.
3.2 In October:
After finishing the cartoon handbook we made with Worldshaper-NJBIOX, we went to Lanyuan Community and did some promotion activities there. During the activity, we introduced what is synthetic biology and how to use it in the environmental protection, the economy and so on. We gave out the cartoon handbook as well hope it can help the public to understand things that we introduced better. From this activity, people in the community get to know this unfamiliar academic area to them.
4 Self-media platform
Our team opened a Wechat Official Account and a Youtube account. In these two platforms, we released some informative articles to share the progress of our team. Additionally, we offered some science popularization articles which related to our projects and synthetic biology in these platforms to help the promotion in these areas.
