Team:SCAU-China/Outreach

In order to promote synthetic biology and attract public’s attention on the relationship between synthetic biology and social life, this summer, we carried out scientific exhibitions, high school teach-ins, online promotion and develop a set of cartoon images demonstrating the applications of synthetic biology. We hope people, particularly the youth, could gradually raise their awareness of biological science through various interesting and impressive experiences in our practice. Compared to developed countries, the growth of biological industry is still limited in our country, we believe that the more people know about synthetic biology (such as what social problems can be solved with synthetic biology, what safety issue might arise as it develops) the faster the biological industry can develop. It is no doubt that biological industry plays an increasingly important role in sustainable development in modern society,and we hope our efforts could contribute to this trend.

Scientific Exhibition (Figs. 1 to 5)

Cooperated with the iGEM team of South China University of Technology (SCUT-China), we held a scientific exhibition about synthetic biology in Guangdong’s Science Center. We devoted ourself to popularize synthetic biology by promoting combat of antimicrobial resistance, MDC, and some other applications of synthetic biology. The theme of the exhibition is how synthetic biology improves our life, aiming to popularize the knowledge and application of synthetic biology in social life, history of iGEM foundation and introductions of our project. In the scientific experience section, visitors can obtain latest information about iGEM projects on posters and in video display area. They can also get a glimpse to the micro-world through the microscope provided. In the engagement section, visitors can take snaps with our cartoon images which strands for different application area of synthetic biology. Moreover, signatures of those who show supportive attitude to development of synthetic biology are collected on a signature wall. According to official statistic, over 5,000 visitors were attracted to the Guangdong’s Science Center per day on average. So we believe that our exhibition is influential and impressive to the public. We thank SCUT-China for great cooperation to achieve such a successful exhibition.

High School Teach-ins (Figs. 6 to 7)

As part of our project, we conducted project teach-ins in high schools. Introduction of synthetic biology and our project are included in the presentation. The most exciting part is the discussion about our project on improvements and potential problems with teen-aged students. Younger minds are full of curiosity and creativity, so we obtain various inspiration and suggestion to our project. Moreover it is of great pleasure to see that students are interested in biology and social concern of biological industry is rising. We hope the younger students would also be obliged to do the same jobs in future .

Online Promotion (Fig. 8)

Online promotion is an interesting part of our project. As a social communication app, WeChat is quite popular in China. We established an official account for our team. This account serves as a communication platform between our project and the public. Regularly, latest progress of our project is uploaded and release to the followers. It is also available for them to leave their messages and suggestions to us. Moreover, information about the iGEM and relevant researches or projects is published sometimes. With attractive images and introductions, the public have a good access to synthetic biology. Last, using the convenient online platform, we host online survey and discussions on the significance of our project to the community.