Team:SJTU-software/Public Engagement
Overview
Synthetic biology is one of the most important subjects in life science and biotechnology in the 21st century. Since people can design and synthesize enzymes, compounds, pathways and functions that are not natural, and combine them at will, synthetic biology has the potential to break down the limits of nature and provide a vast space of creativity and imagination. Its application prospect in various fields is immeasurable. Therefore, it is of great significance for the healthy development of synthetic biology to fully understand and evaluate the possible impact of synthetic biology on human society and to take appropriate and farsighted norms and guidance. It can be said that synthetic biology epitomizes the human desire to learn from nature, extract the best functions and ideas from nature and integrate them.
In order to educate the public about synthetic biology and its importance, we have taken many different forms of publicity. In plant synthetic biology, most people only know its role in genetically modified foods, but not many people know about other aspects such as drug development and plant resistance to pests and diseases. We educated the general public about the fundamentals and knowledge of plant synthetic biology through high school courses and 3D games. Through these activities, we could minimize the public prejudice against synthetic biology. Integrating science popularization into education and games made our propaganda work smoother and more efficient.
3D Game
"Professor's secret" is a 3D biological knowledge puzzle-solving secret room escape game.In this game, the protagonist is trapped in a secret room, which is the residence of a professor of synthetic biology. There are a lot of puzzles and clues about synthetic biology. Players need to activate their brains, use their biological knowledge, find clues, solve puzzles, get out of the secret room.
The main purpose is to let more people understand synthetic biology and plant-related knowledge in the process of the game, inspiring them to synthetic biology and botany，while gaining interest and happiness.The game is a room escape game,as the protagonist, you are trapped in a botanist's home. You have to solve the puzzle in this secret room to escape the secret room. At the beginning of the game, the game will give you a guide to synthetic biology knowledge, and when you finish the knowledge in the guide, you can unlock the puzzles in the game and escape the secret room，In addition, while playing this game, you can also learn how to use the features of our software, so this is also a promotion for our software.
We have promoted the game extensively in Shanghai Jiaotong University, so that people from all walks of life have tried our games, especially non-biological students, and collected their feedback and opinions. "The puzzle of this game is very interesting, but it also contains a lot of knowledge." Luo Peiyun, a sophomore in agriculture and biology, said, "The game taught me a lot of synthetic biology knowledge, and let me learn how to solve the problem. "Using this knowledge," Cui Hanxin, a freshman in mathematics, said, "There are a lot of small sciences in synthetic biology that make me more aware of this field and have a certain interest," says Lin Yifeng, a major in environmental engineering.
In addition to promoting in the university, we also put our game videos and links on Bilibiliand Youtube, hoping to use the network to promote our games and promote our software. Feedback can also be received in the comments section. In the future, we hope to change the game into a vr game and let more teenagers learn about synthetic biology and our software through this game.
Yunnan Summer School
In Yunnan, we taught junior high school students the basics of plant and synthetic biology in summer school. First, we asked students to observe plant cells through a microscope to understand the basic structure of plants. Then we talked about the basics of genetics and synthetic biology, and taught them to draw pictures in a petri dish of microbes. This teaching model gave them opportunities to understand the basic microbiological experiment considerations during the experimental operation. In all experiments, we have ensured biological and ethical safety.
These are photos of us teaching biology in Yunnan. Through microscope teaching and microbial petri dish painting, we taught students the basic synthetic biology and the knowledge of plants.
This is some of our students’ excellent work: the left is the stomata of the leaf epithelial cells observed by the students, and the right is the study of the observation of onion epidermal cells and the structure of basic plant cells. By observing the plant cells and chloroplasts, the students learned the place and the basic principle of photosynthesis.
We practiced microbial petri dish painting. We have introduced different strains of bacteria, including yeast, which is implanted in fluorescent protein genes. Students explored the diverse microbial world and they are aware of the importance of safety. Most gratifying of all, they showed a strong interest in synthetic biology.
Presented by
SJTU - software
