Education is a cornerstone of our team's mission, and we are passionate about creating opportunities for more people to engage with and contribute to the world of science. We aim to provide tools, knowledge, and resources that empower individuals and foster mutual learning and dialogue within communities. Through various initiatives and activities, we strive to make science accessible and engaging for individuals from diverse backgrounds.
“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” - Socrates
Education is a collaborative effort, and we value diverse perspectives and understand the importance of learning from one another. By leveraging our educational initiatives, we aim to make a lasting impact on the world of science and contribute to the growth and development of the iGEM community. We are excited to embark on this exploration, learning, and collaboration journey with you.
Our project aims at developing a tool against antibiotic resistance. But, with that, it is necessary to have a global point of view on how we ended up here, and where we will go if we stay in our habits, what/who is touched by this worldwide issue. We firmly believe that addressing this complex problem requires scientific research and a comprehensive understanding of its ethical, social, and educational aspects. In the IHP page, different actors were first interrogated, coming mainly from France. Their points of view were very interesting to have a first opinion, and it leads us to think that the problem of antibiotic resistance is also primarily linked to people's misinformation. Population education and sensibilization are a priority in the fight against this threat. The message must be spread to the general public, doctors, and laborers working in livestock because it affects everyone. Sensitizing people is one of the first things and actions to do to fight antibiotic resistance. It is why, as complementary to our engineering tool, our educational efforts have been focused on raising awareness about the causes and consequences of antibiotic resistance, promoting responsible use of antibiotics, and empowering individuals to make informed decisions. We have developed educational materials, organized workshops, and participated in community outreach programs to disseminate knowledge and stimulate dialogue.
To facilitate mutual learning, we have endeavored to adapt our actions to various people, including children and research associate professors. Throughout this process, we have been careful to comply with safety policies.
You can find the guide to our reflections on this education part on the Engineering page.
Educating the young is the key to the transformation of our future. Indeed, a better education is a better comprehension of the world and a better apprehension when the younger will become older. Especially for antibiotic resistance, or at least the health, as it is a significant issue, it is crucial to sensitize people to it.
To reach the youngest, we declined two famous games for our purpose and based on our theme.
The first one is called Antibio-Wolfic and is based on the "Werewolves of Miller's Hollow". Instead of being in a village, we are in a human body. Instead of fighting werewolves, we fight pathogenic bacteria causing an infection. Different characters represent different cell types trying to find and kill all the pathogenic bacteria before they kill or infect every other cell.
One can adapt this game to suit the number of players and their ages. You can choose the number of each cell type to make it easy or difficult. For the young ones, there is a version of cards with "bad" and "good" bacteria cards instead of "pathogenic" and "symbiotic" to make it easier to understand. For those who want to add some difficulties, there is also the resistant pathogenic and symbiotic bacteria that antibiotics can't kill. This game permit to have a global understanding of the antibiotic resistance problem, but with some fun and following the storytelling of Antibio-Wolfic.
You can download the cards and rules from the PDF below and play it as you want !
To diversify our impact, we decided to decline an outdoor game, and we called it the Bacterial Battle. Each team is represented by a colored note that players attach to their chest. The game takes place in an enclosed field representing the intestine of a fictional character and features different types of bacteria. Harmful bacteria try to contaminate neutral bacteria, while good bacteria try to protect them. Antibiotics can eliminate bacteria, but some become resistant. New characters appear as the game progresses. The game ends when there is a majority of resistant bacteria. This game teaches how the spreading of antibiotic resistance works and then educates people that it is crucial to reduce our consumption and learn how to use antibiotics.
You can download the rules from the PDF below, grab some Post-it notes or different-colored paper and play it as you want !
In building these games, our education team was helped by Lola Gueguen, future teacher and co-director of a summer camp. We sent her the first version of our games, and she gave us valuable feedback on the positive and negative aspects while suggesting improvements and helpful advice. Her expertise in this field teaches us that our games may be too complicated for children. Thanks to her, we improved our games, making them more understandable and accessible, especially for the young ones. She showed us the parts of the games that needed to be removed or simplified. Following her advice, we decided to simplify them. She helped us get back to the roots of our project, and came up with ideas to get our message across in terms and actions that younger people can understand. She also explained that children aren't functioning similarly depending on their age. We must consider these different rhythms and abilities to adapt the games for any age. They are now easy to understand, adaptable, and age-independent. Lola helped us build a board game and an outdoor game that helped us raise awareness about antibiotics and antibiotic resistance. We thank her a lot for this help.
We wanted to implement our games in primary, middle, and high schools or summer camps to test our games and their impact. However, out of the fifty establishments we contacted, only one high school answered. The date was settled on October 12th, 2023, in front of 168 students and five teachers. It was an opportunity to have genuine feedback on our games for younger people.
We began our presentation by explaining the iGEM competition, its principles, and our team. We then did some science popularization by introducing the concepts of genes, bacteria, and antibiotics, presenting our project, and sensitizing students to antibiotic resistance. We also talked about the educational side of SuperBugBuster : our motivation, the games, the awareness campaign …
But, we realized that there were too many students to test our games, so much that we couldn't play Antibio-Wolfic or Bacterial Battle. It was a real deception for us, but we found a way for them to play anyway. We provided cards and game rules in paper and PDF versions so that students, teachers, and their families could play at school or home in smaller groups.
We hope that our efforts will spread to the students' environment and that they will learn from our intervention.
The life science teachers at Lycée Condor were delighted with our presentation. Although the biological concepts of our project were a little complicated for high school students, the pupils were attentive and seemed to have understood our approach well. In future, the teachers will be using our project and the concept of antibiotic resistance to explain their genetics lessons, as the concepts of transcription and translation are on the syllabus for the year. In the words of one teacher: "Now that the students have been able to appreciate a concrete project that can be carried out using biological tools, they will have a better chance of projecting themselves and better understanding the concepts they are about to study". We hope that this presentation got our message across and that the students will take an interest in synthetic biology and its applications in the future, perhaps even inspiring them to take up a career in the field.
"The presentation on antibiotic resistance and iGEM was a truly fascinating experience. Prior to this presentation, I had only basic knowledge about antibiotics and the challenges associated with their overuse. However, the presentation opened my eyes to the extent of the antibiotic resistance issue and how it could potentially become a threat to global public health. What struck me the most was how scientists and iGEM project students creatively approach this problem. The presentation explained how they use synthetic biology to design innovative solutions, such as genetically modified bacteria capable of detecting and combating antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This truly impressed me and showed me how powerful science can be in addressing global issues. I'm also grateful for the opportunity to learn more about the iGEM program and see how students can get involved in scientific research projects at such a young age. It inspired me to explore biology and biotechnology further and consider careers in these fields in the future. Overall, the presentation was an enriching educational experience that piqued my interest in important scientific topics and gave me insight into how science can make a positive difference in the world."
The awareness campaign was the continuity of what we did and understood during our different interviews of the integrated human practices part. We interested ourselves in awareness campaigns deployed in France at the beginning of the 2000s. They bore fruits, with a drop of 23.4% in consumption at the end of a five-year campaign and a better understanding of antibiotic use.
To better use antibiotics, we need to go through educating the population. We created five different kinds of posters and a detailed brochure (in French) to sensitize people to the good use of antibiotics.
We imagined this as a campaign deployed in various places such as doctors' offices, pharmacies, schools, or bus stops. However, we know we are not a recognized organization, so as a test, we asked if doctors agreed to display our posters and share our brochure. Two aggreed and placed our posters in their waiting room and consultation room.
Our social media was a vector of information and education for our followers. All along our project, we regularly posted different information about synthetic biology and antibiotic resistance. Social media allows us to reach everyone, especially those unaware of this problem.
As we have seen previously, promoting population education and raising awareness are crucial priorities in combating antibiotic resistance. The message should be disseminated to everyone. In continuity with the work done by the IHP team and the interviews they conducted, it seemed relevant to observe the differences in antibiotic consumption in other countries, particularly in developing countries. But we face the problem that we can't pretend to deploy a campaign globally and internationally if it just fits a French viewpoint and consumption habits. Indeed, many articles describe that antibiotic consumption habits are not the same worldwide, with differences even in Europe between countries, even if our cultures and way of life are very similar. Moreover, sensibilization over antibiotic resistance should be tailored to fit the needs of a population and not simply by giving papers on the subject. We need to know how it is a problem in certain countries more than others, why it appeared, and how culture and antibiotic consumption differ between countries. We don't want to be perceived as know-it-alls with a solution to the problem when we only have our little French point of view.
"To make sure that the field of synthetic biology, and all of the power that this technology holds, gets developed everywhere by everyone."
We wanted other points of view on the subject that are not French centrist. That is why we decided to ask questions on the subject, habits, and culture of the people from Africa, South America, and Asia. We contacted diverse iGEM Leagues and left a message on Slack to get as many responses as possible. iGEM Leagues are a way for both iGEMers and members of their local synthetic biology community to design programs that will contribute to providing an iGEM experience everywhere.
We got several answers : Andrea Sánchez, living in Mexico City and studying Molecular Biology, and four members from the Team ZJU-China. We kept their original answers. Lucy, a ZJU-China member, translated the questionnaire into Chinese for better understanding and translated their answers into English.
You can find the questions and answers in this PDF below
What emerges from this questionnaire is the need to educate people about antibiotic resistance. And just as well, that's what we're trying to do ! Most people need to be made aware of the problems associated with this subject, especially those who don't have access to education.
Throughout this iGEM project, we have been dedicated to education. We encouraged productive discussions and learning by tailoring our materials and activities to children, students or adults. Our goal was not only to enable more people to shape, contribute to, and participate in synthetic biology but also to address important public values like responsible consumption of antibiotics. We are grateful to the unique individuals who made these interventions possible. Education is the key that will allow many other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved. We hope that SuperBugBuster ensures that "all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and culture's contribution to sustainable development."
[1] Ministère des Solidarités et de la Santé. "Lutte et prévention en France." Available: https://sante.gouv.fr/prevention-en-sante/les-antibiotiques-des-medicaments-essentiels-a-preserver/des-politiques-publiques-pour-preserver-l-efficacite-des-antibiotiques/article/lutte-et-prevention-en-france
[2] Ministère des Solidarités et de la Santé. "Colloque Antibiotiques." Available: https://sante.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/6_chapuis_colloque_antibiotiques_16_novembre.pdf
[3] Chapuis, P. "Les antibiotiques en questions." Enfances & Psy, vol. 24, 2004. Available: https://www.cairn.info/revue-enfances-et-psy-2004-1-page-24.htm#:~:text=Globalement%2C
[4] United Nations. "Education for Sustainable Development." Available: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/education/
