Integrated Human Practice

Overview

“Human Practice is the study of how your work affects the world, and how the world affects your work.”--Peter Carr, Director of Judging.

Our main achievements of integrated human practices were to get valuable feedback for our product improvement, as well as to raise the public awareness on the issue of indoor air quality. To upgrade our prototype, we discussed with experts in different fields in algae culturing, protocol design, and product application, etc. During the discussion, we received a lot of practical and useful advices from these experts, and we further integrated those into our project and made CAir™ as our outstanding product to meet customers’ expectations.

Timeline of Integrated Human Practices

Motivation & Brainstorming

Measurements of CO2

We measured the air quality in many places with a sensor, Air Mentor. At the beginning, we took the sensor outdoor into those places, which the sensor was measuring constantly. We observed that the carbon dioxide concentration (in ppm) in each space started at around 400 to 700 except for the gym. When we're conducting the experiment we ensured that there are no people in those places at first, and then people flocked into rapidly. The following are the details and photos of those measurements:

1. Classroom: 40 people in one class, second class of senior second grade in Mingdao.
2. Outdoor: On the fence outside the biolab in MingDao.
3. TEDex Hall: 85 people in the TEDex Hall in MingDao.
4. SUV: 3 people in Mazda CX5 with closed circulation.
5. School Bus: 40 people in one school bus.
6. Table Tennis Room: 42 people in one table tennis room in Ming Hung department B1.
7. Gym: 30 to 40 people in civil sport center gym in the Changhua county.

The CO2 concentration was over 3000 ppm after 30 mins in half the places we measured. At this level people would start to feel uncomfortable with symptoms such as headache and lethargy, but we aren't usually aware of the effects CO2 cause to people, and therefore it is a crucial problem for us to solve.

Project Design

Visiting the Department of Environmental Engineering in NCHU

Spot:Chung Hsing University Environmental Engineering Department
Date:2019.01.11
After we realized the indoor air quality of CO2, we started to search for current methods that solve the problems. We also consulted professionals at Chung Hsing University and they told us some current ways that tackle the problems, which respectively are through physics, chemistry and biology methods. There are absorbents such as carbon or Zeolite in physics and chemistry ways to absorb CO2, but these methods take up a lot of energy and time, while the biology way, reducing CO2 concentration by plants photosynthesis, have low efficiency. They also gave us ideas that we can use algae to reduce the CO2 indoors and model CO2 concentration with some people in an enclosed space. We would like to thank them for giving us ideas about our project, and help make our solution come true!

Lecture by algae specialists, Ms.Huang

Spot: Mingdao High School
Date:2019.02.22
In order to have in-depth knowledge for algae,we invited algae specialist Ms.Huang to Mingdao high school. Ms.Huang gave us many practical suggestions, which made us understand more about the part of our device that needs to be improved. For example, the regulation of the photoperiod of algae will affect the growth efficiency.Ms.Huang said that the most appropriate day and night alternation is 12 hours of sunlight and 12 hours of darkness. She also gave us ideas about how to control the illumination of our device while also provided us with the requirements of keeping the algae. What's more, Ms. Huang explained the functions of different types of algae as well as the application of them. After listening to her introduction, we decided to choose cyanobacteria as our algae in our device. We really learned a lot from this lecture and understood a lot more about algae. These can certainly help our experiment and improve our device.

Visiting Team Tunghai_TAPG

Spot:Tunghai University
Date:2019.5.17
For a further understanding of our project, we went to the Department of Chemical Engineering of Tunghai University. They introduced the current methods of chemical absorption of carbon dioxide to us, such as their disadvantages,advantages and how the absorption works. We learned what function we need to reinforce to cover the shortages of the current methods and what advantages we already have through discussions. Apart from this, we also exchanged our ideas with them as well as having a visit to their laboratory. This visit to Tunghai University gave us some ideas about how to strengthen our device.These surely made our project more faultless.

Prototype Development

Asking questions about air stones from the Central Environmental LTD.

Date: 2019.8.17
We met up with the employees from the Central Environmental LTD., which was a company producing a variety of air stones. We demonstrated our project design to them while they introduced their product to us and they gave us a lot of useful suggestions. After some discussion, we realized that we had a problem with the blocking of air stones for a long time, and they taught us to stop the water flow for a while and turn it on after a moment, the issue could then be resolved. Besides, they recommended us to filter the air-ventilated through air stones.
Also, we would like to express our appreciation to the Central Environmental LTD. by providing us with their own products to be placed into our device. We also got much knowledge about different types of air stones, not only the methods to use them but also their respective characteristics. For instance, a bobble disk could make finer bubbles than air stones but it needs more space to place. Eventually, we chose air stone in our project due to its efficiency, size, and its trait that provides uneasy attachment to the algae.

Taiwan Indoor Environment Quality Management Association

Spot: Taiwan Indoor Environment Quality Management Association
Date:2019.8.16
The Indoor Air Quality Association of Taiwan is more familiar with the air cleaning field as well as customers' thoughts. Therefore, we realized that visiting them was the best way to solve our problems and improve our devices.
The Chairman of the Association, Mr.Zheng, told us that our idea had been developed for a long time but hardly put into practice, which meant what we did was quite challenging; hence few people working on this succeeded. However, if the effect of our device was evident enough, this would have been a giant progress in the air quality field. Besides, the Chairman also mentioned about the low efficiency of plant photosynthesis. He also told us that a normal-sized conference room needs at least three walls of pothos to get rid of the carbon dioxide produced by 5~6 adults.
Most importantly, the usage of algae was actually brilliant because the photosynthesis efficiency of algae was a lot better than normal plants.

Visiting Environmental Protection Administration

Spot: Environmental Protection Administration
Date: 2019.08.16
In order to comprehend the law of indoor air quality (IAQ) standards, we went to the Environmental Protection Administration on August 16th in order to obtain information about law legislating and device feasibilities.
First of all, we inquire about the reason why they set 1000 ppm as the highest standard and the difference between public place and labor’s workplace. Environmental Protection Administration’s scientific researcher (Dr. HONG, MING-JUI)answered that according to research in academia, saying that the maximum endurance of carbon dioxide for elders and children is 1000 ppm. Notwithstanding, specific places such as mines were being set at 5000 ppm as the highest standard. After that, we asked about the most efficient method of reducing indoor carbon dioxide. To our surprise, opening the windows is still the most eminent method, but everyone prefers to turn on the air conditioner instead of opening the window. What’s more, Dr. Hong invited an engineer (Ms. YE, HUI-FEN) to provide professional suggestions about our hardware device. He suggested the parameter should be clearer, such as rpm, as well as how many square areas should contain one device to have the best efficiency.
In conclusion, we not only realize the meaning of indoor air quality (IAQ) standards but obtained a number of practical suggestions. All of these helped us make progress on our device.

Online discussion with Prof. TSAI, YAO-HSIEN of Taiwan Society of Indoor Environmental Quality

Date:2019.9.9
Because of Professor Hong’s suggestion, we decided to contact the Taiwan Society of Indoor Environmental Quality to ask for some professional opinions. Professor Tsai is the secretary-general of the Taiwan Society of Indoor Environmental Quality, which is the most professional and specific association related to indoor air quality. To know more about the actual applications of our product, we had an online discussion with Professor Tsai.
Professor Tsai first asked us the reasons why we chose this project theme, as most people do not have the awareness of carbon dioxide. After that, we asked about how the most commercially available CO2 meters measure the concentration of carbon dioxide with constant accuracy? He answered that those meters utilize the trait of carbon dioxide which can easily absorb infrared light. Furthermore, we discussed the problem of whether it is important to develop the device set in a low concentration of carbon dioxide. However, it’s the distinction that provides the developmental potential for our product.

Algae plant of VEDAN Biotechnology

Spot:Algae plant of VEDAN Biotechnology
Date:2019.9.17
On September 17th, we visited VEDAN Enterprise Corporation, which excels in algae cultivation field and has already selled algae caplest for a long period of time.
At first, the factory manager introduced the facilities of the factory including the open-culture system and the high-temperature dryer. Then, we saw dried algae being made into numerous caplets. The factory manager told us that algae are high in nutrition, which can improve our metabolism and peristalsis of our stomach. After knowing the process of making algae caplets, we discussed the recycling method on the leftover algae in our product. The factory manager then taught us that there will be no algae poison as we only grow algae in a few days.
He explained further and said that, without a comprehensive drying process, algae are likely to be harmful to human beings. Thus, He suggested us to heat the algae on our own. Despite this uncertainty in food safety, it can still be a good fertilizer or animal feed. After the visit and discussion with the factory manager, we solved the recycling problem and learned a lot about algae in this aspect. We also decided to adopt this recycling method and improve our product with this new knowledge.

Conclusion

For integrated human practice, we visited lots of professional authorities from different fields, all of them gave us countless useful comments, which prevented many problems from happening. We are all grateful for these people’s help, including the components provided or advice offered. We put those suggestions into practice and improve our project. In sum, without their support, CAir™ would likely fail.

Short introduction video for integrated human practices

Education & Public Engagement

Overview

About education and public engagement, we introduced synthetic biology and our project to the public, raising awareness on the danger of terrible indoor air qualities. Through these activities, we gathered a group of people interested in science and inspired young kids on synthetic biology through simple experiments and simplified explanations of Biobrick. After all, science should not only exist in the lab but should also be spread to all.

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 to be interested in synthetic biology. First of all, we taught them some simple knowledge about gene editing and the pros and cons about GMOs. Surprisingly, almost everybody knew GMOs to some degree, and has shown curiosity about our project. Therefore, we started our experiments with total excitements.
On December 18, we first introduced the equipment in our lab to the students, and they all have had a taste of using them. Afterward, we did the experiment of DNA extraction. Although they just simply used a pipette and added different buffer into the eppendorf, these novel experiments still inspired their interest and inspired their curiosity about synthetic biology.
On December 20, we did the experiment of electrophoresis. This one was much more challenging than the former. However, the harder the experiment was, the more the students who want to finish it!
After 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 of 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.
First, 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, its 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. Lastly, we asked them what would you do with GMO, and one of them even said he wanted to modify a cockroach!
The other students also shared a lot of ideas. By doing this education project, not only the students learned a lot but we also 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.

Biotech experiments for grade six students

Spot: Mingdao High School
Date:2019.04.28
We introduced the foundation of synthetic biology for new students in our school as well. Owing to their young ages we first used storytelling and some vivid sentences to interest them so that they will fell in love with synthetic biology. After that, they no longer felt that synthetic biology was aridly tasteless.
Initially, we teach them how to use a pipette and the basic parts of synthetic biology. Although it was easy for us, they still spend a lot of time to learn it, and we were still worried that they would do some unexpected actions. However, to our surprise, there weren’t any errors until the end. Next, we taught them DNA transcription as well as RNA 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 the experiments were extremely exceptional. In the end , some students even said that they want to do more , which encouraged us to teach them more!
In this one-day camp, I believed that we have given the elementary students some useful skills. In conclusion, through this event, more people will start to care more about 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 that was similar to a science camp for junior high school students. We taught them the basic theories of synthetic biology in understandable 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 their story and we had a wonderful time discussing with them, and we're also surprised by their imagination in this.
After that, we did a simple experiment about the 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 novel for them. We were all glad to see their joyful faces when they found out that they succeeded in their experiments.

Taiwan iGEM Conference

Spot:National Chung Hsing University
Date:2019.08.05-2019.08.06
On August 5 and 6th, we participated in the Taiwan iGEM conference hosted by National Chung Hsing University. At the beginning of the first day,we attended lectures from the professors from NCHU, and we surely learned a lot from the lecture.After the lecture was the time for the 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 presenting 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 in the poster area,we introduced our project and exchanged ideas with other groups, while listening to other groups introducing their projects. We learned a lot about how to make our poster better and ameliorate our problems. These two days were a great and useful experience.We also acquired a lot from the presentation. The advice that each of the group gave us will surely make Mingdao a better team. We would like to thank NCHU for providing us with such a great chance for us to exchange our ideas with other groups in Taiwan.

Raising Public Awareness

Communicate to Mingdao Voice Club

Spot:Hungdao Library at Mingdao High School
Date:2019.09.24
We communicated with the Mingdao voice club to listen to other's opinions to make our project more complete. Mingdao voice club is a place for students to share different ideas and discuss with others 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.
In the beginning, we shared some ideas about Indoor Air Quality, saying that many people may neglect its importance. However, as more and more people tend to stay indoors, we should recognize this problem and start to deal with these conditions. There are various plausible 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 saying that it's about lowering CO2 concentration indoors, which helps awakening people who are going to fall asleep in highly CO2 concentrated areas. Club members gave us lots of feedback 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 the necessity to raise public awareness of Indoor Air Quality, for which we’d come up with some ideas like shooting a video or through school education.
We exchanged our ideas and views about our project by understanding what they thought. Although the use of our device might cause the spread of chlorella that could potentially pollute the environment, but in terms of decreasing 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 concnetration (in ppm) in our classroom. Fifteen minutes after the lesson started, we measured the air quality and showed it to the students. Simultaneously, we conducted a survey about the instant feelings of the students, in which the ppm of CO2 was already 1000. Then we taught them about the danger of high concentration of CO2 by explaining the negative consequences of this. Before the lesson ended, we measured the air quality again, and we observed that the ppm of CO2 rose to 1500. Then, we asked the same questions to the students, and the number of people who felt uncomfortable increased. Many students began to concern about air quality, and up to 23 people hope we can figure this problem out.
In a nutshell, after the completion of this experiment and survey, we learned how fast the concentration of CO2 can increase and how many students were influenced. We also learned that many people are still unaware about this dangerous situation, so we should continue our teaching and device development.

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 many students and teachers were very interested about our project, we prepared 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 the Giant Jamboree and presentation. We would definitely remember those advices to have the best performance in the competition.

Conclusion

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

Short introduction video for education and public engagement