NAU-iGEM

Campus Promotion Overview

Campus promotion was held to publicize the competition of iGEM 2019 and synthetic biology in our own university.

· Our purposes
Introduce iGEM to students, especially undergraduates, on campus.
Grant them some knowledge in synthetic biology.
Encourage them to engage in this worldwide event and solve global problems in the future.

So, what did we do?

Promotion notice on WeChat

We chose to promote our event via WeChat, one of the most popular social media among students in China.

The opening ceremony

An opening ceremony was held as a formal introduction, as well as a chance for those who are interested in iGEM to meet us and ask questions they might have.

The YuLan-Road Promotion

Our team members delivered presentations and explained more details on iGEM on Yulan Road, the main road in Nanjing Agricultural University.

The closing ceremony

It served as a chance for students in our school to pre-experience the process of iGEM, though doing experiment was not included. The promotion proved to be successful, since 128 students had taken into this Campus Competition and came up with their own project.

The NAU-iGEM Campus Competition

The NAU-iGEM Campus Competition is an iGEM-like contest organized for anyone who are interested in iGEM. The aim of this contest was “CLPS”(communication, learning, participation and surpass). Altogether 12 teams formed by 128 students had participated in this competition. We，the NAU-iGEM 2019 team members, gave them some lectures about literature retrieval and reading, mathmatic model and wiki making. Each team was required to hand in one project design one month later. In closing ceremony, when they gave their final project presentation, we offered them some suggestions and graded their performance.

Conclusion

This Campus Promotion plays a role as a medium between iGEM and students. It is in this promotion activity that many students get to know what synthetic biology is, and then hold great interest in iGEM. It serves as a key that lead our students to open the door of a magic and colorful world--synthetic biology. Thus more and more students who are obsessed with this field can apply knowledge into practice, improve comprehensive ability and make efforts to contribute to the development of synthetic biology.

Agar art

What is 'agar art'?

https://www.asm.org/Events/2019-ASM-Agar-Art-Contest/Home
“Have you ever seen art created in a petri dish using living, growing microorganisms? That's agar art! Creators use either naturally colorful microbes, like the red bacteria Serratia marcescens, or genetically modified microbes, like the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae transformed with violacein genes, as 'paint' and various types, shapes and sizes of agar as a 'canvas.' ”

This year, we held this meaningful competition in our school.

We gave the students a PowerPoint presentation to introduce Agar Art to them. They were free to team up, and every team was required to hand in one work. When preparing for their work, they were encouraged to retrieve and read articles by themselves. And excellent works were selected to exhibit on Wechat Official account. These excellent participants underwent our next stage of training which is provided by us to complete more outstanding works.

Hundreds of people participated in our competition and really enjoyed it. Many lovely works were submitted. “Study in Agricultural university, I am already accustomed in doing experiment”, a student said, “but it is the first time that I find experiment can be an art.”

Nanjing Science and Technology Museum

We held a small lecture at Nanjing Science and Technology Museum this year. Our aim is to popularize synthetic biology and related knowledge to the general public. At the same time, we gathered public opinions and suggestions on our project.

1. Onion skin section observation

To connect with our community and inspire children's interest in scientific research, we brought three microscopes and onion skin section observation protocol to Nanjing Science and Technology Museum.
We conducted the demonstration first, then kids were allowed to follow the protocol by themselves. They really enjoyed the happiness of observing the micro world. After observation of onion epidermal cells, we gave the kids and tourists around us a poster presentation of synthetic biology, telling them that we can do a lot to solve the worldwide problems in this field.

2. Poster presentation and publicity

Our poster was devided into four parts:
 What is synthetic biology?
 What is iGEM? Why do you want to be an iGEMer?
 Application of synthetic biology.
 Advantages of synthetic biology.
After the introduction of synthetic biology, many people, especially students and parents who hang out with their kids, showed great interest in this field. They were amazed at the creative ideas and the broad prospect of synthetic biology, inquired us more details about iGEM and followed Wechat Official Account--Regenesis to gain more knowledge and pay attention to the process in this field. We believed there will be more synthetic biology enthusiasts in the near future.

3. Survey of publicity effect

After our poster presentation, we distributed 200 questionnaires to the public to survey the publicity effect of our previous work. Our questionnaire was as follows:

Effect:

1. Most people knew what synthetic biology is in a broad sense and the application of it in some special fields.
2. All people knew what iGEM is.
3. Most people said that synthetic biology should be strictly supervised, and eighty percent of people said they expect a bright future that synthetic biology may give. The rest twenty percent hesitated about the safety and security.
4. Most people would continue to pay attention to the progress of synthetic biology.

Team:NAU-CHINA/Public Engagement

Public Engagement