Team:UESTC-Software/Public Engagement
Overview
As
iGEMers, we are committed to promoting
synthetic biology and iGEM to the public. But it's difficult to understand through just speeches for people who
have never associated with this field. We need assistive tools to express in a more friendly way. Therefore, we
designed two products: board game BioME and a brochure about synthetic biology. When organizing all kinds
of activities, we paid more attention on the participation of the people. Since different ways were adopted for
different groups, more public engagement resulted in the better promotion.
Products Design
BioME
Synthetic biology contains some
professional terms and core concepts, which makes it difficult for many interested people to enter the field.
Deep understanding of synthetic biology does require academic research, but we want to make the idea of
synthetic biology more accessible and easier to the public. That’s why BioME comes out.
BioME (BioMaster Engineering) is based on the bottom-up hierarchy of
synthetic biology. Players start from
collecting parts, and finally build a functional system. Through this game, some
types of parts can be easily understood. Meanwhile, players can remember the bottom-up idea of "building blocks", so as to raise their
interests on synthetic biology.
PS: The map design of BioME refers to CATAN UNIVERSE. We also consulted the
lawyer for professional advice on
whether the game design would cause infringement. As the central idea of the whole game is the idea of
synthetic
biology, which is original and has been divorced from the original game itself, infringement will not be
involved.
Click to DownloadBioME for PC.
Here are some of the elements of the game, as
well as the explanation of the game video.
Synthetic Biology Brochure
In fact, the application of synthetic
biology is very close to our life, which conforms to its core idea of "solving practical problems". But many
professional knowledges involved in this field is too daunting, which hinders the development of
synthetic biology. Therefore, we hope to introduce synthetic biology to the public in a more friendly and simple
way to attract more people's attention.
During the preparing for the competition, we designed a scientific brochure.
Starting with the
definition of synthetic biology, we guided the public to understand its research content and purpose layer by
layer. The brochure is designed mainly for junior and senior high school students. It is simple in style and
focuses on understanding with vivid pictures to simplify complex professional knowledge. It also includes comic strips that highlight the applications of synthetic
biology and iGEM. It was given out in some of our propaganda activities and the public response was very good.
Please click the picture below to download the brochure.
Publicity Activities
Children's Day Adventure with SynBio
On June 1, the children’s day, we organized the theme event
"Children's Day Adventure - Exploring Synthetic
Biology" in Sichuan Science and Technology Museum with UESTC-China. We also invited teachers and students from
the University of Hong Kong to participate in. More than 200 families took part in this activity.
The activities included two speeches:
1. “Action for Lucid Waters and
Lush Mountains” , delivered by Professor
Lixia Tang, UESTC-China’s PI;
2. “Surrounding Artificial Intelligence” presented by Patrick, an outstanding
student of Hong Kong who is also an Alibaba intern. The lectures mainly introduced synthetic biology and
artificial intelligence in our daily life. The children were curious to ask many interesting and imaginary
questions after lectures.
In addition to science lectures, we also organized a series of
interesting activities, such as PH detection,
leaf stickers, making leaf vein bookmarks, painting the biological world and so on. The children not only
experienced the fun of doing things by themselves, but also learned a lot of interesting knowledge in
activities, such as why the mesophyll easily peels off but the leaf vein holds after alkali treatment, pH test
paper turns red when acid and blue when alkali.
We also co-organized the science theater - Ciprofloxacin Incident.
This story is based on the project of
UESTC-China this year. Through the wonderful interpretation of the actors and the interaction with the audience,
the children learned the role of CRPP enzyme in sewage treatment, and even could fully speak some professional
words mentioned in the project.
Students from the University of Hong Kong organized activities with us
all the time. Although they don't major in biology, they were glad to have participated in this activity and learned a lot of knowledge
about biology that they had never heard before. Many parents who came to accompany their children are also very
satisfied with this theme activity, saying that such an interesting and popular science activity is most
suitable for children at the age of full of curiosity.
Teach-CHENGDU SHISHI HIGH SCHOOL
On September 7, UESTC-Software went to CHENGDU SHISHI HIGH SCHOOL to
hold a seminar on synthetic biology and
iGEM. The aim of the seminar is to encourage them to actively participate in such academic research competitions
and develop their own interests.
In order to stress its core concept of "creation, knowledge and
application", the application of synthetic
biology in real life was introduced emphatically, such as remediation of pollution by microorganism, prevention
of Vitamin A Deficiency by producing beta-carotene from cereals, production of rose essential oil by yeast
engineering and development of natural medicines —— microbial synthesis of artemisinin and so on. Students who
were not familiar with biology also showed much interest in it.
When it comes to the iGEM, we mentioned the importance of "Human
Practices" in the preparation of the
competition, and encouraged students to solve practical problems, understand social needs and create a better
world in the future.
At this seminar, we distributed the elaborate brochures, which helped
students understand synthetic biology
better. Some students even hoped that the brochures could be commercialized and they planned to buy them for
their families.
The Second iGEM Festival
For the pre-iGEMers which are high school students and undergraduates, they’ve
already acquired some knowledge of synthetic biology and have heard of iGEM. What we should do is to introduce
more details to them and invite them to join us. So we continued the tradition of last year and held the 2nd
iGEM Festival in UESTC and designed three parts, synthetic biology popularation , game stage, and the other is
iGEM introduction.
On the introduction, we told the pre-iGEMers what was synthetic biology and iGEM.
Through introduction, they got to know iGEM in a more specific way. Different from what they searched on the
internet, we told them what we would do for the competition and what we would gain in joining this. After the
introduction, high school students and undergraduates showed their great interests in it and asked many
questions about what they should do to prepare for iGEM.
In the game session, we first demonstrated the game explanation video and
explained how the core idea of synthetic biology is integrated into BioME. Through these games, they understood
the functions of some common types of parts (such as promoters and terminators) and kept the idea of bottom-up
engineered synthesis in mind.
