Team:Hong Kong JSS/Public Engagement
Public Enagement
2019 IGEM summer camp
We organised the 2019 Synthetic Biology and iGEM Training Camp for more than 100 local high school students.
On 5 Aug - 7 Aug 2019, our team, with the collaboration of The Amgen Biotechnology Experience Program CUHK and HKUST, hosted a synthetic biology summer camp for secondary school students in Hong Kong. We also invited team members of HK_HKUST to be the tutors and group leaders of the camp. This year, more than 100 students from over 20 local secondary schools joined.
The camp aims to provide basic molecular laboratory training and engage them in synthetic biology, as well as introducing the concept of iGEM, hoping that students participating can develop a keen interest in synthetic biology. In the 3-day camp, the participants divided into small groups, contributed most of their time in lab sections, under the guidance of our team members and HK_HKUST team members. The participants had the chance to create their own GMed E. coli by using sub-cloning and DNA recombination.
In Hong Kong, most students do not have the chance to have hands-on experience of doing such experiments in normal school lessons. With more than 100 participants from over 20 local schools, this camp had provided a wonderful experience for students, not only enriching their knowledge in biology, and also knowing more about the iGEM competition.
2019 HKJSS Synthetic Biology and iGEM Training Camp
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2019 HKJSS Synthetic Biology and iGEM Training Camp
Hong Kong Secondary School iGEM Meetup
Every year, our team organizes a symposium for all the high school iGEM teams to meet up. We aim to provide a casual and fun platform for all the high school iGEMers to share their projects and ideas. More importantly, we can get known to each other teams' members and hangout together when we attend the jamboree :). This year, 5 HS iGEM teams joined our meetup, including HK_GTC, HK_SSC, HK_JSS, HK_LFC_PC and HK_UCCKE. During the meetup, we exchanged many ideas and also raised questions to each others' projects. We learned a lot from this meetup and met a lot of fellow high school iGEMers.
The teams present their projects to the audience during the meetup.
The teams present their projects to the audience during the meetup.
Public promotion of our project
Our project was inspired by the lead pollution in drinking water incident in Hong Kong. However, from the results of our survey, we found that many people in Hong Kong are still lack of awareness in heavy metal pollution.
Therefore, we organized an outreach program to introduce our research and product to the public at local residential area and schools. The audience generally appreciates our work and is surprised by the idea that we can use bacteria to remove metal pollutants in water.
Therefore, we organized an outreach program to introduce our research and product to the public at local residential area and schools. The audience generally appreciates our work and is surprised by the idea that we can use bacteria to remove metal pollutants in water.
Posters for introducing our project to the public.
Outreach program to introduce our research and product to the public at local residential area and schools.
Biology Research Team Regular Course
Biology Research Team Regular Course(Coverage: 45 students)
Our team members host a biology course for other fellow schoolmates regularly. The course covers a compressive content of synthetic biology and science through both theory mentoring and wet laboratory work. The content taught in this series of course are as follow.
- Principle of Science
- Principle of Synthetic Biology
- Techniques of Synthetic Biology (With wet-lab experience)
- 3A Assembly
- Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)
- Gel Electrophoresis
- Laboratory safety
- Laboratory skills and Preparation
The course has received very positive feedback from our student too. The course have grown from a total participant of 12 to around 45 participants (including staff members). We are working on building a much larger team and creating a stronger bond between the teammates.
Public Education Video
The purpose of this video is to educate and raise further awareness to the public of the heavy metal pollution, to name a few, the impacts and causes of this pollution. Moreover, it is aimed to promote our device to the public by explaining the principle and the design.
In order to convince the public to use our device, achievements are added to increase credibility. Our target users are also be introduced.
The video has been uploaded to YouTube. （https://youtu.be/REcJjTbd2zQ）
“A device to cope with copper concentration in water” Animation
iGEM Tools and e-Learning Platform,
A website was setup by our team members for future iGEM team’s use. It consists of two parts, the tools and e-learning platform. For the Tools, it includes common dry lab resources that iGEM teams commonly use, such as sequence formatting and sequence comparison.
The e-learning platform (https://ucckeigem.org/learn) is a e-learning site with 5 courses for students' learning. We hope that the website can help high school which are intrested in joining iGEM teams to start with their project.
The e-learning platform (https://ucckeigem.org/learn) is a e-learning site with 5 courses for students' learning. We hope that the website can help high school which are intrested in joining iGEM teams to start with their project.
iGEM eTools
Courses in the e-Learning Platform
Content of the course