Abstract
Since humans entered the 21st century, a new interdisciplinary subject "synthetic biology" has become a hot topic in the forefront of international science. Broadening the public’s understanding and attention to synthetic biology will be conducive to the development of synthetic biology. For this reason, We do a lot of activities about spreading synthetic biology and iGEM events.
Synthetic biology comes to youngster
We pay special attention to young people and their knowledge and interest in science, so we have launched activities in different schools in different regions, including:
Nongken Middle School Presentation
On August 20th, Han Yi, a student of our team, gave a lecture on iGEM in Nongken Middle School, Hainan Province, China. He introduced the relevant knowledge of synthetic biology, briefly explained the iGEM competition, and introduced the project of straw reuse and biological fermentation to produce lycopene by HBUT-China this year.
As this class belongs to the new college entrance examination biology class, they already had some professional knowledge, and the students have developed a strong interest in iGEM and synthetic biology.
In the presentation, the students learned about the status quo of straw treatment and biological sustainable development in China.
In addition, Han Yi showed the students the pictures of the use of various equipment, operation steps and measuring instruments, supplemented by the structure and main process of the project. Students exclaimed in admiration that synthetic biology is closely related to the future of mankind, after a series of biological treatment, as a crop straw treatment can also turn waste into treasure, become the antioxidant lycopene.
This presentation broadened the students’ horizons and gave them a more intuitive concept of synthetic biology and the project. It is believed that in the future study, the students of this biology joint class will have a stronger interest in learning, complete their high school studies with higher enthusiasm, practice the spirit of biology people, and contribute to society with professional knowledge in the future field.
Zhiyuan Middle School Presentation
In August, the team members Hongying Zeng returned to their high school Alma mater in Xiangyang, Hubei Province, to popularize iGEM and laboratory equipment knowledge to the students and introduced iGEM to the high school students. They hoped that the students can participate in this "carnival of synthetic biology" during their college years, and feel the unique charm of synthetic biology from iGEM.
Although high school students have a preliminary understanding of biology, most of their daily learning only stays in writing, and they do not have instruments operated by themselves (because there is no biology laboratory in local high schools, and there is no school with iGEM team). So, we choose to explain iGEM through videos and texts of real people. The students deepened their understanding of PCR instruments, centrifuge, and sterilizer, and further understood the common equipment in biological laboratory to explor the subject of biology. We hope that mastering this knowledge can bring benefits to students in life and study, enjoy the practicability of biological knowledge, and realize the educational significance.
After the science popularization session, the team members shared their own experience and learning experience with the students, and expressed some opinions and impressions on the biology major, believing that this major has great potential and is full of fun.
We hope that through this presentation, more people can join the iGEM competition, so that our community can have more fresh faces and ideas.
Kindergarten presentation
In June, we carried out a science popularization activity with the theme of "Microbial Kingdom" in the nearby kindergarten of Hubei University of Technology. The event is aimed at preschool children and aims to educate them about microbes. We took the children to explore the world of surrounding microorganisms from an interesting perspective, so as to better help the children understand and learn biological knowledge.
In the process of the presentation, we start from the common microorganisms in life, and add questions in the process of explaining, so that children can get answers from thinking and exercise thinking ability. Science content from yeast in bread to bacteria that cause tooth decay, from the things around the beginning to explain, so that children can personally feel the charm of biology.
We believe that this is an educational activity, leading children to contact with biological knowledge when they are young, whether it is in their later life, or learning, has a very profound significance.
Caring for Public Welfare
On the afternoon of September 14, HBUT-China team held a charity sale for ten days at the playground in the middle district of the campus. The activity mainly sold "lycopene" IP cultural and creative products of the HBUT-China team, and all the proceeds of this charity sale will be donated to the Hope Project Micro Wish Project of the Wuhan Youth Development Foundation Secretariat, which aims to widely mobilize the caring forces of all walks of life to support the "Hope Project" public welfare undertakings together with the popular science picture books and traditional Chinese culture books carefully prepared by the HBUT-China team.
In this process, we not only warmly introduced iGEM competition, synthetic biology and our HBUT-China project this year to the students who passed by or were interested in the charity sale, but also donated the money and books obtained from the charity sale to to Wuhan Youth Development Foundation Secretariat with three different series of popular science picture books prepared by us.
We believe that when the children read our donated books, they can learn and have access to synthetic biology at the same time, planting a seed of love for science in their hearts at a young age.
Campus Booth Promotion
With the goal of expanding the influence of synthetic biology and publicizing the International Genetic Engineering Machine Design Competition (iGEM), and opening the door of synthetic biology to more people, the HBUT-China team conducted a booth promotion on the campus.
The booth activity is mainly for teachers and students of Hubei University of Technology. We have prepared promotional posters to introduce iGEM, the winning experience of previous HBUT-China teams, and the basic knowledge of synthetic biology. We hope to give more people have a preliminary understanding of iGEM.
We made some small cards related to synthetic biology and played games with passers-by who were interested. By participating in the game, they learned some simple synthetic biology knowledge.
Yanlin Science and Technology Innovation Platform
With the help of the Yanlin Science and Technology innovation platform, the HBUT-China team held a science popularization event, achieving the goal of further promoting HBUT-China team and synthetic biology to more college students.
In the course of event, team members introduced our project to the audience: the use of Corynebacterium glutamateby CRISPR-MAD7 gene editing technology to produce lycopene. The students were very active in sharing their own independent thinking about synthetic biology with the lecturers.
In addition to sharing the research content of our project and promoting synthetic biology, we hope to inspire and give aspiring students a preliminary view of synthetic biology and iGEM.
The world of synthetic biology is vast and boundless, and can always use more like-minded people to explore together. We have always believed that more and more people will explore synthetic biology and use it to benefit mankind.
Synthetic biology come to public
At the same time, lycopene, which has excellent antioxidant properties, is still not well known, so we decided to broaden our publicity methods and content to attract public interest effectively in synthetic biology and iGEM events, We have produced a series of popular science picture booklet and videos.
Picture Booklet
To expand our project’s publicity, we produced picture books related to our work.
Among them is the promotional video Tomato on the Sea by the HBUT-China team, which tells the story of the maritime Silk Road as the background, the traveler travels across the ocean along the maritime Silk Road to the mysterious remote eastern continent, presents the tomato to emperor’s concubine, and claims that the tomato can help people remain young. The concubine orders him to bring the tomato to the public. Finally, the traveler extracted lycopene and spread it around the world.
As for this picture book, there are a lot of illustrations with distinct Chinese style, such as the images of traveler and imperial concubines displayed in the form of shadow puppets, and beautiful ancient landscape paintings, which are enough to attract readers’ attention. Moreover, we also use the stories between traveler and imperial concubines to insert a detailed introduction to our team project.
With the cooperation of Ocean University of China, the picture book for autistic children Creation of Rainbow adopts black and white color throughout the picture book to protect special groups. Moreover, our team’s mascot is used as a small host to make concise, vivid and interesting words and pictures set together, which not only attracts children’s interest, but also integrates our project content into it.
Chinese traditional culture-related Chinese herbal medicine in Ancient Chinese poetry - Abrus precatorius.
We combined traditional Chinese poetry to popularize Chinese herbal medicine. In the thousands of years of Chinese inheritance, many things are not only a simple thing, but also have certain symbolic significance, that is, poems written by renowned authors. By combining the two, we can let readers experience the beauty of traditional Chinese culture in the process of reading. It can also play a certain role in popular science.
We will use these three series of picture books as peripheral and donated books to spread to others, so as to attract others, help others and spread knowledge.
Popular science video
As for the science popularization videos, we have produced two series: a Chinese traditional culture series, and a laboratory operation science popularization series. Our goal is to continue the idea of this project to spread Chinese traditional culture to the world, and make interesting science popularization videos, including two sub-series of Chinese herbal medicine and Chinese traditional culture, which detailed their origin, cultural significance and modern significance. By making it a fun video, we hope to attract a lot of attention.
We also went into the laboratory of the HBUT-China team and made a video of the operation of experimental instruments, including three instruments commonly used in synthetic biology, centrifuge, PCR, and sterilizer. We used simple and clear narration and video images to reveal the fascinating and mysterious side of synthetic biology to more people, hoping that more people will have a certain understanding of synthetic biology and even like it.
Finally, we posted it on www.bilibili.com, a popular website among Chinese young people, and TikTok, a popular app around the world.
Until November, we have received thousands of views, making more and more people aware of the iGEM competition and our project.
