Why do we focus on

inclusivity?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by countries around the world, declares that "everyone has the right to education". But currently, there are many obstacles that prevent some people from participating in science, which limits the development of science. A more inclusive and representative scientific community will improve the quality and impact of scientific research.

Education should provide equal opportunities for everyone, and the first step in giving more people the opportunity to participate in science is to obtain relevant scientific knowledge for free. The teaching and exchange of scientific achievements are incomplete if they do not benefit all groups.

It is associated with our school's student union regularly volunteering at local institutions for children with autism, accompanying them to play. This year, we are attempting to develop a useful and influential strategy that allows iGEM, synthetic biology, and STEM to accommodate people from different backgrounds and identities, enabling more people around the world to understand and learn science, thereby contributing to the scientific community. To this end, we investigated and studied the barriers to insufficient participation among children with autism, and designed inclusive strategies that respect their culture and values, eliminate those barriers, and create a more inclusive and representative scientific community.



Figure 1 Partial Results Display

The area of inclusivity we are researching

and the reasons why we chose it

Autism, also known as autism disorder, is a representative disease of pervasive developmental disorder (PDD). It is generally believed that there are approximately 2-5 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) per every 10,000 children. The gender ratio is approximately 3:1-4:1, with boys being affected at a rate 3-4 times higher than girls.

Most children with autism experience symptoms within 24 months, which are mainly manifested in three core categories of symptoms: social interaction disorders, communication disorders, narrow interests, and stereotypical repetitive behavior. Social interaction disorder refers to the deficiency of children in social interaction, unwillingness to play with others, and lack of understanding of social norms. Communication barriers refer to the inability to understand or abuse language, often expressing their emotions through crying or screaming. Narrow interests and stereotypical repetitive behavior refer to their potential attachment to non living entities, repeating the same things. At the same time, 75% to 80% of patients are accompanied by varying degrees of intellectual impairment, so they cannot accept the normal teaching progress of ordinary schools, and most need to receive special education in special schools.

Education is a key means to help children with autism integrate into society, but currently the education foundation for children with autism is relatively weak, with a large shortage of teachers and a low level of talent specialization. Li La, Dean of the School of Special Education at Nanjing Normal University of Special Education, said, "The attention and treatment of autistic patients in society is more focused on the physical and mental aspects of medicine and rehabilitation studies, rather than on daily education. We need to think about how to help autistic children integrate into society through reasonable teaching, and form a scientific teaching system. Therefore, sharing synthetic biology knowledge with autistic children, It is very important for them to participate in and experience the development of science.



Figure 2 Our team members accompany children with autism to color up

1.Preliminary understanding

Through searching for information, we have learned that in the current situation where medical methods cannot cure autism, education and training are particularly important, and painting is an effective art therapy.

The research on children's painting has been developed for a long time in the fields of psychotherapy, psychology, painting therapy, and education. Many researchers have accumulated a wealth of knowledge and experience on how to use children's painting for treatment and education. In the process of painting, nonverbal tools are used to convey children's consciousness and subconsciousness, and can serve as a therapeutic change factor. Many medical experts, psychiatrists, psychologists, educators, and others believe that painting therapy is suitable for children with developmental delay, emotional disorders, autism, and ADHD. Painting not only helps children improve their attention and relax their minds, but also helps them improve their emotional management, social skills, and creativity; It also helps educators to enter the spiritual world of children, help them develop the abilities they lack, tap into their potential, and achieve psychological perfection. Secondly, painting is also a way for children to understand the external world and a nonverbal expression of their inner world. When children cannot express themselves through language, painting is a way to help them express themselves. When adults and children are together, having children draw is an extremely common and natural way of communication.

2.Activity Assumption

This year, our team focuses on the most important issue of inclusivity. After understanding, many children with autism enjoy painting and music as their intuitive way of perceiving the world. Seeing and understanding images is much easier than understanding language, body movements, and so on. Moreover, colors provide useful support for reading in children with autism to a certain extent.

Therefore, we have planned a synthetic biology and igem science popularization picture book activity, with students in charge of art drawing black and white science popularization picture books. The content covers science popularization of medium chain fatty acids, engineering bacteria, gene expression and knockout, etc. We brought picture books to the institution for children with autism and gave picture books to them for coloring. In the process of painting, we "mixed education with pleasure", meaning to place the role of education in entertainment, in order to popularize some simple scientific knowledge for children with autism in a way suitable for them, and create more learning opportunities for socially disadvantaged students.

3.Improvement Plan

We contacted the principal of Qingdao Golden Children's Institution for communication and informed us of our preliminary picture book plan.

At the same time, it also provides a more intuitive understanding of the needs, opinions, and values of children with autism. The teacher said that not all children have the ability to draw, and even a considerable number of children with autism have significant issues with their perception of text, fine graphics, and color cognition. The teacher mentioned that our picture books are difficult and may be difficult for them to accept.

Therefore, we have modified the picture book to reduce descriptive language, data, etc., and converted it into fairy tale language; And simplify complexity, replace difficult to understand biochemical processes with easier to understand basic knowledge, and transform cartoon images into more understandable simple strokes. And following Confucius' theory of "teaching students according to their aptitude", we designed picture books with varying degrees of difficulty to color different children.

After adjustment, our picture book meets the teacher's requirements and can finally promote our activities on-site!



Figure 3 Improved picture book

4.Project Promotion

We assisted children with autism in coloring on site and also briefly explained the principles in the screen to them. Sometimes they could locate the contour and color it themselves, but sometimes we needed to hold their hand to assist them. Although there was not much continuous language exchange between us, we could feel that they were also taking everything seriously. When we praised them for completing their work very well, they also shyly bowed their heads and smiled. The following attachment will specifically showcase the coloring results we have collected.



Figure 4 Many children with autism participate in activities together

After drawing picture books, we also helped the autism clinic prepare and drew many colored picture books that children use for daily training.



Figure 5 Our team members help the organization prepare for work

5.Summary of Achievements

We have documented our event planning and workflow in detail for others to learn or improve on this basis. This helps to further expand the scope of influence of this activity and increase social attention to the autism population.

At the same time, we have collected and summarize the drawn results and place them on our wiki.

Work

extension

We also actively invited teams and individuals from around the world to participate in our projects and share their perspectives and suggestions. This cooperation model enables us to gather more creativity and professional knowledge, continuously improving the quality and educational effectiveness of our picture books. Therefore, we have documented our work ideas, plans, and processes in detail for others to learn or improve on this basis. This helps to further expand the scope of influence of this activity and increase social attention to the autism population.

When we went to Hainan University in July to participate in the CCiC conference, we shared our plan and collaborated with 9 global iGEM teams (HainanU China, OUC China, SZU China, HBUT China, CAU China, GUANGXI-U China, SDU China, BIT China, UM Macau, NJU China). We named this event synbiorainbow. We shared the event planning book and told them how to draw picture books and get in touch with local institutions. The participating universities have all proceeded smoothly, and we have collected many picture book achievements from universities. The following attachment provides a detailed explanation of the planning document we have released to the public, as well as a summary of the participating universities.



Figure 6 Cooperation reached at CCiC conference

Internationally, we have the honor to invite Indian university MIT-MAHE to draw picture books for their projects, expanding the volume of picture books. We are also fortunate to invite our advisor Carla Coll Costa from Spain to help us translate our picture books into Spanish and Spanish dialect versions for local promotion.

We learned that in 2020, the NJMU China team planned a project on the relationship between autistic children and gut microbiota. Their team also volunteered at an autistic children's institution to play with them.

Our goal is to provide children with autism with an interesting, easy to understand, and interactive learning tool to help them better understand the concepts of synthetic biology and stimulate their interest in science. Through continuous improvement and collaboration with global teams, we believe that we can make greater contributions to the education of children with autism. We all hope that with the efforts of our classmates in the future, this activity can become bigger and better, and we also hope that the autism group can receive more and more attention from society.

PDF 1 event planning proposal PDF 2 Translation(Blue is Catalan and Orange is Spanish.)

PDF 3 synbio-rainbow



Figure 7 Activities scenes from different organizations

Sum

mary

Overall, we aim to diversify scientific and educational opportunities for children with autism. After understanding their daily lives and communicating with experts in the field, we have determined our future work direction. In over two months, we have created unique picture book learning materials suitable for children with autism, received feedback from professionals, and received support from other universities. Considering all of these, our goal is to expand the understanding boundaries of scientific inclusivity and diversity in all possible directions and make significant contributions.

We believe that everyone will increasingly pay attention to and care for this group - the children of the stars, bringing them more warmth and companionship.



Figure 8 Our team members coloring with children with autism

[1] He Kan,Psychological Health Education for Special Children, Jiangsu University Press, 2008, p.127.

[2] Ge Minggui,Classic Psychological Tests, Anhui People’s Publishing House, 2010, p.183.

[3] Lu Yaqing,Art Therapy, Chongqing University Press, 2009, p.228.

[4] Courchesne V, Meilleur AA, Poulin-Lord MP, Dawson M, Soulières I. Autistic children at risk of being underestimated: school-based pilot study of a strength-informed assessment. Mol Autism. 2015 Mar 6;6:12. doi: 10.1186/s13229-015-0006-3. PMID: 25774281; PMCID: PMC4359559.

[5] Ludlow AK, Wilkins AJ, Heaton P. The effect of coloured overlays on reading ability in children with autism. J Autism Dev Disord. 2006 May;36(4):507-16. doi: 10.1007/s10803-006-0090-5. PMID: 16598434.

[6] GBD 2019 Mental Disorders Collaborators. Global, regional, and national burden of 12 mental disorders in 204 countries and territories, 1990-2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. Lancet Psychiatry. 2022 Feb;9(2):137-150. doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(21)00395-3. Epub 2022 Jan 10. PMID: 35026139; PMCID: PMC8776563.