Collaboration
0799 Art District
Located in Jiangkou Village, Xiangdong Town, Xiangdong District, Pingxiang City, Jiangxi Province,
0799 Art District co-exists with the Xiangdong District Art Museum. It
mainly consists of 33 artists including college art teachers, freelance artists, art designers, and
freelance photographers.
With the weekly art experience, monthly sketching activity, and bimonthly exhibition, Xiangdong District
Art Museum improves the public's cultural and artistic accomplishment, assists art education, and
provides opportunities for artists to exchange ideas and learn from their creative activities. The pure
creative space, high-level exhibitions, various forms of academic exploration, professional training,
and art salon activities have played an essential role in culture and art popularization and rural
revitalization.
The idea of the project originated from a previous social practice in the 0799 Art District. Five of the original members visited 0799 Art District, Pingxiang, Jiangxi in January 2023, aiming to figure out the role of art in the rural vitalization in Jiangkou Village, Pingxiang. The 0799 Art District is a place of art, gathering artists in different fields, from art professors in university to freelance painting artists and photographers. During the social practice, we visited several oil painting studios and got the chance to experience oil painting in person. Apart from the impressive visual effect brought by the oil paints, what left a deep impression on us was the pungent odor of the oil paints and the unpleasant smell diffused in the studio. We learned from the artists that the odor came from some oil paints and turpentine, the thinner of oil paints. As students of medical major, we instinctively thought of the potential health risks of the unpleasant odor and considered how this problem could be solved. Months later when we brainstormed the project of iGEM, this experience came to our mind.
After conducting background research and assessing the possibility of using synthetic biology to solve this problem, we reached out to the 0799 Art District again, hoping to establish some collaborations. Focusing on the pungent odor of turpentine, we visited the 0799 Art District again, interviewing oil painting artists. We tried to learn about their opinions on the removal of turpentine odor and their suggestions and anticipation about the product. We finally reached a cooperation agreement (click here for detailed information and here for the translated version), promising to use biological approaches to solve their problems and getting permission to test the effectiveness of our product in the art district.
Volunteering teaching - Juxi Cangnan Wenzhou Summer Social Practice Group
This summer, the International Campus Zhejiang University - Juxi Cangnan Wenzhou Summer Social Practice Group went to Cangnan County to carry out a series of social practice activities including the science and technology summer camp and medical health research. In the science summer camp, the group took advantage of ZJU's strength in life sciences and engineering sciences, leading the children to carry out a wealth of scientific-practical activities, allowing the children to deeply experience the wonderful world of science.
When conducting some background research about the project, we found that the concept of “bacteria”, which is not uncommon in biology, seems to be far away from the life of common people and is unfamiliar to them. We, therefore, hope to promote some basic concepts of biology, especially synthetic biology, to the public and to tell them how we can utilize biological tools to solve some tough problems. Given that volunteering teaching has long been a traditional social practice activity for ZJUers, we decided to cooperate with them to popularize biology in the young generation.We cooperated with the International Campus Zhejiang University - Juxi Cangnan Wenzhou Summer Social Practice Group to carry out a series of classes about basic biological concepts in Juxi Primary School, Cangnan, Wenzhou.
We organized a series of classes about basic concepts in biology, microorganism experiments, knowledge competitions, and so on to help students gain deeper insights into synthetic biology (click here for detailed information). Our teaching received positive feedback collected from students and we were quite surprised to receive some fantastic works from students, such as some delicate cell structure models that they made after classes.
Volunteering teaching - "Haishishanmeng” Volunteering Teaching Team
After completing the online volunteer teaching in the spring of 2023 with Mengshi Primary School in Weishan County, Yunnan Province, 18 students from the International Campus of Zhejiang University established the Haishishanmeng Volunteer Teaching Team and came to the primary school in person to carry out the first phase of volunteer teaching summer camp in July 2023. Aiming at broadening students horizons and strengthening quality education, the team designed 12 kinds of courses by themselves including psychology, science, art, and so on as well as some innovative curricula like flipped classrooms.
Since the starting point of our product is closely related to art, our iGEM team hoped to join biology and art together in our educational activities. Already designed science and art class, the Haishishanmeng Volunteer Teaching Team was willing to trial this novel teaching form to arouse students' interest in both science and art.
We prepared slides about synthetic biology and videos recorded in our lab for those students. One of our team members went to the primary school and prepared the education activities together with the volunteering team. After listening to the introduction to synthetic biology, biology lab and science fiction painting, students bring out their imaginative ideas in the form of drawing (click here for detailed information). Through handing out questionnaires, we observed their increasing interest in synthetic biology and doing experiments after those activities. In a word, good results have been achieved in our collaborations.
ZJUintl-China Team
The ZJUintl-China team is an iGEM team composed of Zhejiang University students dedicated to developing novel cancer treatments through artificial intelligence computing to improve human health.
The iGEM team that communicated with us most frequently during the competition was the ZJUintl-China team. Since we did our experiments in the same experimental building, the team members could meet with each other frequently to exchange the experimental results and experimental progress. In addition, we also have regular seminars to discuss our experimental projects and encourage each other. Even though our project topics are different, we can always provide appropriate suggestions and ideas for each other's team to make progress together. All in all, having a partner ZJUintl-China team to work side by side on the way forward is encouraging as well as a win-win situation for us.
During our seminars, we had the opportunity to share our project plans and experimental designs with the ZJUintl-China team, leading to exciting exchanges of ideas and vibrant intellectual discussions.
