About education and public engagement, we introduced synthetic biology and our project to the public, raising awareness of the danger of terrible indoor air quality. Through those activities, we gathered a group of people interested in science and inspired more young kids’ love of synthetic biology through simple experiments and easy-understanding explanations of Biobrick. After all, science should not only exist in the lab but be spread to all the people.

Biotech Workshop

Biotech Experiments for junior high school students

Spot: mingdao, STEAM FAIR
Date: 2018.12.18,20 We host a STEAM FAIR in our school to intrigue junior high school students’ interests of synthetic biology. First of all, we taught them some simple knowledge about gene editing and the pros and cons about GMOs. Surprisingly, almost everybody had known GMOs to some degree, showing curiosity of what our project mainly about. Therefore, we started our experiments with total excitement.
On December 18, we first introduced the equipment in our lab to the students, and they all tried these gears with novelty. Afterward, we did the experiment of DNA extraction. Although they just simply used pipette and added different buffer into eppendorf, these novel experiments also inspired their interest and wanted to know further about synthetic biology.
On December 20, we did the experiment of running gel. This one was much more challenging than the former. However, the harder the experiment was, the more the students wanted to finish it!
By means of this event, we knew that synthetic biology was actually quite a new thing for the public. Through this activity, we believed that they had learned deeply about what iGEM was and the secret world in DNA!

Education project in Jiou De elementary school

Spot: Jiou De elementary school
Date:2019.3.8 In order to introduce some basic concepts of synthetic biology to primary school students, we went to Jiou De primary school for our education program.
As our first topic, we introduced iGEM to them. They looked at us confusingly, but after we explained to them, their eyes sparkled with excitement and kept asking us about it. They surely have learned much about iGEM. After introducing iGEM, we told them some facts about GMO products, including the principle of GMO, application, and how they have affected our lives. We also play games to make the concept easier to understand, such as charade and quiz contest. Last, we asked them how would you do with GMO, one of them even said he wanted to modify a cockroach!
The other students also shared their ideas to everyone. By doing this education project, not only the students but also us learned a lot. What’s more, we successfully make them understood the facts about iGEM and some GMO related things. In general, this education project was a great experience and reminiscence.

Biotech experiments for grade six students

Spot: Mingdao High School
Date:2019.04.28 To introduce the foundation of synthetic biology for new students to our school. Owing to their young ages we first use storytelling way and some vivid humorous sentences , in order to adjust this part of student’s mood , simultaneously could arouse students’ interest , so students will have fallen in love with basic synthetic biology , also no longer felt that was that aridly tasteless.
Initially, we teach them how to use pipette, the basic part of synthetic biology. Although it is easy for us, they still spend some time to learn it,and we are still worried that they will do some unexpected actions. However, to our surprise, there weren’t any errors until the end. Next, we taught them transcription as well as translation. They were so eager to learn it that they kept asking us questions. Eventually, we do PCR , which was the hardest part of the day. We help them carefully. Luckily, the results of experiments were extremely exceptional. In the end , some students even said that they want to do more , which encouraged me.
In this one-day camp, I believed that we had brought the elementary students some useful skills. In conclusion, through this event, there will be more people to care of synthetic biology.

Biotech class for Da-Dun Junior High School students

Spot: Mingdao High School
Date: 2019.7.3 In summer, we designed a course, which was similar to a science camp for junior high school students. We taught them the basic theory of synthetic biology in easy- understanding ways.
In the class, they tried to imagine that they were superheroes with gene editing bodies. Afterward, they needed to figure out how to save a person falling down from a skyscraper. We invited them to share their ideas about this story. We had a wonderful time discussing with them, also surprised by their imaginary thoughts.
After that, we did a simple experiment about DNA extraction of bananas. By adding alcohol, dishwashing liquid, and so on into the cup of banana juice, the DNA soon appeared. That was the first time the students saw the real DNA, which was such a novelty for them. We were all glad to see their happy faces when they found out they succeeded in their experiments.

Taiwan iGEM Conference

Spot:National Chung Hsing University
Date:2019.08.05-2019.08.06 On August 5th and August 6th, we participated in the Taiwan iGEM conference hosted by National Chung Hsing University. At the beginning of the first day,we listened to the lecture presented by the professor from NCHU, and we surely learned a lot from the lecture.After the lecture ,it was the time for team presentation. NTHU and Tunghai University introduced their project to us,and the others bring up questions.Through the process of asking and answering questions, both the presentation group and the audiences made progress.
For day two,the rest of the groups made their presentation,including us.The university groups and the professors provided a lot of advice as well as inspirations ,which really benefited us.The presentation of other groups also gave us a lot of ideas.As for the poster area,we introduced our poster and exchange ideas with other groups.While listening to other groups introducing their posters,we learned how to make our poster better and ameliorate our problems.This two days was a great and useful experience.We also acquired a lot from the presentation. The advice that each of the group gave us will surely do us good as well as make Mingdao a better team.Thank to NCHU for providing us such a great chance for us to exchange ideas with the groups in Taiwan.

Raising Public Awareness

Communicate to Mingdao Voice Club

Spot:Hungdao Library at Mingdao High School
Date:2019.09.24
We communicated to Mingdao voice club to listen to other's opinions and making our project more complete. Mingdao voice club is a place for students to share different ideas,and discuss with others through speaking up their own perspectives on social issues.To spot the weaknesses through mutual discussion, we show them some videos concerning our project at first,and then provide them with some issues about our project.
At the beginning, we shared some ideas about Indoor Air Quality, for many people may neglect its importance. However, as more and more people tend to stay home, we should face this problem and start to deal with the bad condition. There are various probable causes of poor Indoor Air Quality, including CO2, microbe, particulate matter (PM), etc. This is how we find out the solution. First, we focused on the effects of CO2 concentration. Next, we introduced our project to lower CO2 concentration indoors, which helps awakening people who are going to fall asleep in highly CO2 concentrated areas. Club member gave us lots of feedbacks and suggestions, such as environmental problems the project may cause, or the possibility to install our device on the air-conditioner. In addition, we also discussed about the urge to raise public awareness of Indoor Air Quality, for which we’d come up with some terrific ideas like shooting a video or through school education.
We could exchange our ideas and views about our project, understanding what they thought. Using our device might cause the problem that pouring some useless chlorella could damage to environment, but to decrease CO2 concentration, our project could be an alternative solution.

Project Introduction in Classes

Spot:Grade 11 class 2
Date:2019.10.4
On October 4th, we measured the CO2 ppm in our classroom. Fifteen minutes after the lesson started, I measured the air quality and showed it to all the students in that classroom. Simultaneously, I conducted a survey about the instant feeling to the air quality then, which CO2 ppm was already 1000. Then I taught the danger of high concentration of CO2, which may cause human beings to be drown, throw up, and even pass up. Before the lesson ended, I measured the air quality again, which CO2 ppm rose up to 1500. Then, I asked the same questions to the students, the number of people who felt uncomfortable increased a lot. Many students began concern of the air quality, which is up to 23 people hope we can figure this problem out.
In a nutshell, completing this experiment and survey, we learned how fast the CO2 ppm increase and how much the students be influenced. We also learned that many people are still unknown about this dangerous situation, so we should keep teaching people and developing our product.

Project Demonstration in Mingdao High School

Spot: Mingdao High School
Date:2019.10.9
On October 9th, we host a special event in our school, which was the project presentation. Because every student and teacher was very interested and curious about our project, we prepared for a long time and decided to present it in front of all of them.
We cherished this opportunity to practice and viewed it as a formal competition, thus getting lots of positive and useful feedback from the audience. The audience was interested in our novel theme and asked many questions about it. What they cared the most were the price of our product as well as the functional efficiency. Besides, we realized that we still had lots of things to improve, not only the fluency of our presentation but also the details of our demonstration.
We were also grateful for the listeners under the stage, especially the iGEMers from Mingdao 2018 iGEM team. They gave us many useful suggestions about Giant Jamboree and presentation. We would definitely remember those and did a great performance in the competition.

Conclusion

By human practices, we realized that synthetic biology can be spread to more people with our efforts. We promoted our ideas to the public by education, public engagement and integrated human practices. Education programs let us have the chance to get students in different ages have some understanding about synthetic biology. Through the sharing step by step, we found out that most kids considered science interesting, which inspired us a lot. Through surveys, we found that they were quite interested in our project and willing to give us advice to make our project better. We not only promote our project to people but also raise their awareness about carbon dioxide. We had never thought how influential we could be. Therefore, there was no doubt that our love of iGEM and synthetic biology would last, and the inspiration would be passed down to more and more people by our efforts.

Team:Mingdao/Public Engagement

Overview