From 2014.igem.org

Revision as of 23:37, 16 October 2014

Human Practice

Energy Day

The event “Energy Day” is held by Faculty of Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong on August 20th, 2014.Hundreds of participants, including professors, researchers and experts from related industries were involved.This activity aimed to promote new technology in energy aspect, which was highly related to the goal of our project. We had a whole-day poster session, in which we present our project to various audiences. Our project aims at turning excess carbon dioxide in atmosphere to useful biofuel, methane. It was a wonderful opportunity to promote our project and also receive professional comments, which are discussed in our questionnaire analysis. Apart from sharing our project, we also introduce iGEM and synthetic biology, which has aroused a great interest among the visitors. They were amazed by the concept and the application of synthetic biology, and realized the underlying industrial value. Indeed, synthetic biology could make significant contributions in energy-related fields. We were glad to share our enthusiasm on this topic with others and also inspired them for further research and application. “Energy Day” has successfully raised the awareness of professionals towards synthetic biology and a novel environmental friendly way to generate biofuel.

<img src = ""> <img src = ""> <img src = "">

Presentation

In order to introduce the idea of synthetic biology and iGEM to high school students, we have done multiple speeches in Hong Kong. We aim to educate the young students about the creativity and potential of synthetic biology, a booming, novel topic which is not covered in their curriculum. We hope to arouse their interest and hopefully inspire them to join iGEM too. Currently, no Hong Kong team participates in HS iGEM competition. Encouraging high school students to join iGEM is crucial and exciting, as iGEMers, we believe it is our responsibility to play an active role. To demonstrate the unlimited applications of synthetic biology, we shared innovative award-winning projects in the past iGEM competitions. We also discussed our current project with them, eager to know their comments. Results from surveys provided us different insights into our projects, which were highly-valued. After the talks, many students approached us and asked us further details about iGEM and synthetic biology. It is truly rewarding to see so many students are interested and inspired. We hope Hong Kong HS iGEM teams can be seen in the near future, producing more novel ideas.

Laboratory workshop

As synthetic biology involves more specific equipment and advance skills, most of the high school students do not have chance of having real laboratory experience. We hope to provide some basic introduction of common equipments and techniques to the students. By holding laboratory workshops, we offer the students a hand-on experience of doing experience. We held a workshop to 10 students. Handbooks containing relevant experimental design, background knowledge and protocols were distributed. Experiments such as gel electrophoresis, plasmid DNA extraction…etc, are introduced. In addition, we gave pre-lab talks, emphasizing on safety issue and waste disposal. It is our belief that proper attitudes and manner go before skill. Throughout the workshop, each student got to handle their own experiments, with our guidance and support by the side. Needless to say, most of the participants were thrilled and eager to learn more about other lab techniques. Laboratory workshop gave a great interactive experience between the high school students and our team.

<img src = ""> <img src = ""> <img src = ""> <img src = "">