Team:NCKU Tainan/Engagement
Engagement
MDHS x CSMU x NCKU
Meet Up
This July, NCKU Tainan hold a meet-up with Ming Dao senior high school iGEM team and Chung Shan Medical school university iGEM team.We shared each other with our projects in the afternoon and motivated to challenge better.
Aims Of The Meet-Up
We chose to hold this meet-up in 7/3———It’s the time that each iGEM team has chose their project and have the brief concept to go on with the project.In this case, we had lots of things to share with each other,like the whole blueprint of human practice program, design of device,the difficulties had meet …etc.In the meet-up,we listened to different teams’ prospection and their latest program. Because we are all registered teams, We could have more detailed discussion of lab design and shared about some useful information about the competition——and most of all,we listened to other teams’ advice,and gave some feedback of their project.In conclusion,we hoped this meet-up would be benefit for teams attended, and made all of us to think more thoughtfully about our projects.
How We Proceed ?
Both two schools invited are located in central Taiwan.One is a senior high school team(Ming Dao senior high school) and the other one is a college team(Chung Shan Medical school university).Before the meet-up, we had to pick up a good date earlier in
case they could figured out the transport way.
We sent E-mails to the leader of Ming Dao senior high school iGEM team to discuss about the the format of the meeting,including how long was the presentation time of each group,how many people would attend.
Here is our brief schedule.
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 13:30-14:00 | Introduction |
| 14:00-14:30 | MDHS Project Introduction & Discussion |
| 14:30-15:00 | CSMU Project Introduction & Discussion |
| 15:00-15:30 | NCKU Project Introduction & Discussion |
| 15:30-16:00 | Discussion and snack time |
There were 15 people from MDHS, 7 people from CSMU and 17 people from NCKU. Each team take turn to have a short presentation about their project and other teams will give them some advice to improve and some questions to innovate them.Then,
we divided into three groups Wet, Dry, HP to have a further talk about our passion and profession. We share our experience and observation of how to do things more smoothly and successfully.At the end, every one get a chance to taste one of
the most famous Tainan snacks-- Douhua (soybean pudding),ending this meet up sweet.
FEEDBACK
In the meeting, CSMU team asked us that how to culture E.coli in cold water,because our target aims to approve the water quality of aquaculture but the temperature often too low for E.coli to thrive.It was a good point for discussion and we had figured out the way to improve our design.Our device was also challenged for its size and position.Also, we talked about the integrated HP definition,and got useful advice from each other.Their presentation and powerpoint design also widened our horizons and motivated us to give better performance in the future.
For Other iGEM Teams
We thought this meet-up will be a good way to spark new idea,and gave a near-look of our project.Also, meeting brought conversation,forcing us to step out of our comfort zone.If you want to hold a meet-up like this, you can reserve more time for discussion and invite teams who engage in different tracts (or the same tract if you want).
High School Education In NEHS
This May 2017, NCKU x Tainan team went to NEHS for our education program.There were 30 people attended,who actively raised their hands up for excellent questions!
Why We Choose NEHS ?
National Experimental High School At Central Taiwan Science Park (NEHS) is an senior high school located in the central Taiwan.Different from other high school,NEHS embraces an educational philosophy that is humanistic,hails multiple intelligence and
champions lifelong learning————exchange program, clubs, science fair are available for their students in their first and second years,which is rare in Taiwanese eduction system.
The school vision exactly meets our team’s spirit ‘’Think globally, act locally’’,and that’s why we though NEHS would be our best choice for high school education.
How We Proceed ?
Before 5/26, we had sent document to NEHS. Their teacher scheduled our speech into their guidance program, and gave us 1 hr in their lunch time (12:00-13:00). We send six team members (including 2 HP, 2 wet lab, 2 dry lab).The first 15 minutes we introduce iGEM and four compartments’ job,and the next 20 minutes we went through last year’s project and this year’s idea. After this, we shared our college life with them,and showed them how our profession contributed to our job in the team. At the last, it was the Q&A time! Students asked us questions about our project and gave us lots of useful feedback! After we went back to Tainan, we received a message from a student,who was burned the passion for synthetic biology.
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 12:00-12:15 | introduction, iGEM and compartment |
| 12:15-12:25 | last year’s project |
| 12:25-12:35 | our idea |
| 12:35-12:45 | college life |
| 12:45-13:00 | Q&A |
Feedback
This high school education program aims to share our project with high school students.We want to spark light in their minds that there are lots of knowledge beyond textbooks, and maybe they can join iGEM next year. Further more, high school students have learned ‘’Nitrogen cycle’’, so they can gave us some feedback from different prospect. Students asked us about our device, and wondered how does it work in water? and why we choose E.coli instead of other bacteria in our design? And some students also asked us how to introduce iGEM to NEHS.
High School Education In KGHS
On 2017/06/09 afternoon, we have a small talk in Kaohsiung Girls Senior High School. Maybe they can't understand all the technical details yet, but we hope to buried a seed deep in their heart. Perhaps one day, it will rise as the prettiest flower in the world.
Why We Choose Kaohsiung Girls Senior High School?
Being the first and only iGEM team in south Taiwan, we desperately want to be the motivation for many students who are talented and have a passion in science, we want to let them know that there are thousands of young students are working as a team outside
Taiwan, trying their best to make the world a little bit better.
But why is Kaohsiung Girls Senior High School? what makes Kaohsiung Girls Senior High School so special?
- KGHS (short for Kaohsiung Girls Senior High School) was built in 1924, and it is one of the best high school in south Taiwan, despite the fact that it is a school only for girls.
- Teachers in KGHS encourages the students to develop their interests in science, they spend their own time to give extra lessons to the students, therefore they always won many prizes in Taiwan National Science Fair. We want to challenge them to look more globally, stand out of Taiwan and shine in the world.
- To be honest, even in nowadays there are still some gender stereotypes in Taiwan’s culture. For example, they tend to girls to study literature or business instead of science. They don’t understand that if the girls were given same chances as the boys, they may have even better performance. Thus, we want to break this stereotype.
Process
- We went to two class to have a little sharing, and each class have around 45 students and a homeroom teacher.
- Before we started to talk about the main point of our sharing, we first shared the tips to study in high school? How we manage our time? We do so is because high school students in Taiwan are under huge pressure of having good grades and entering good university. Those extracurricular events that won’t give you better grades are often disapproved by parents. We want to prove to them that it is possible to balance school works and after school club.
- The highlight is definitely when we shared our project to them. First, We introduced why we want to do this project. We talked about the problems caused by aquaculture in Taiwan, including stratum subsidence and river eutrophication. We learnt those problems a lot in school ad media, they are something that most of the Taiwanese are familiar with, you can easily judge by their facial expression knowing that they agree with you.
- Second, we shared how we built our special E. coli and the device we are going to combine with, trying to let them know that iGEM is not simply a molecular biology competition but a opportunity that you can work with incredible people in every area. In other words, even though biology is not your passion you can still find your spot.
- Last but not the least, we showed them the human practice activities we have done and what we have planned for the future. Let them understand the duty of every person who is well educated is to teach the public and the next generation right knowledges.
Feedback
- We got a lot of questions form the students which shows their interests in our short talk. Even in the break time, we are still surrounded by the students, and the communication didn’t stop until the teacher of next class come.
- The teachers showed highly attention about iGEM, and invited us to talk more in his office. We even started to talk about the possible ways of building the first ever iGEM team in KGHS. You can definitely looking forwards for the upcoming years.
- Of course our ultimate goal is to inspire them to build a iGEM team, yet it might takes some time. Nevertheless we have tried our best to shared them our experience and introduction of iGEM. Maybe they can't understand all the technical details yet, but we hope to buried a seed deep in their heart, irrigate with courage towards difficult task. Perhaps one day, they will rise as the prettiest flowers in the world, no matter in iGEM or other area.
- After all, what really matters is the right way to do things, the right attitude toward knowledge and challenge. Those are things that irreplaceable.
2017 NCKU Club Festival
What Is Special About 2017 NCKU Club Festival?
This is our school second time participating in iGEM competition. If the members in first iGEM NCKU Tainan team is the seed, we want to be the root that makes iGEM NCKU Tai-nan can grow bigger and stronger. The first step of our long-term planning is
to officially es-tablish an after school club, and the first activities of this first ever after-school club is the 2017 NCKU Club Festival.
2017 NCKU Club Festival is on 2017/03/02-2017/03/03, the main goal is giving the students
in NCKU a chance to discover all the various clubs and find “the one”. This year has more than 100 clubs joined the festival.
On the other hand, it is a very good chance for us to promote iGEM and recruit new blood. What’s more? At that
time we haven't decided our topic yet, there is three candidate pro-jects that we want to do. All of them are meaningful and we just could not decide which one to choose. Therefore, we turned the dilemma to the students, let the public to decide
which one is the incredible project that we are going to work on it.
Process
- First, we introduced our club and the fact that we are looking for new bloods to them. Since a good iGEM team definitely need members from diverse back ground , every per-son who is interested in it is welcomed no matter which grades or what is his or her sub-ject.
- Second, we described iGEM and synthetic biology to them, even though they might not understand the details and the biological terms, we are still trying to let them understand the importance and the magical power of synthetic biology.
- Third, we talked about the three candidate topics that we want to do, and described what issue we want to conquer. But most importantly, we asked them to choose a project that they want the most, and collected their opinion on each topic.
Feedback
- It is our first time to join a club festival, we learnt a lot about executive works, and how to organize a event. However, there is some details we can improve next time. For example, if we had a microphone or anything can amplify our voice, we may attract more students.
- It’s a pity that on the first day of the festival, one club burn the wires so the power is off. Perhaps next time we can prepare more for the accident.
- We got a lot of cool comments on our three candidate topics, and even some advices which really inspire us. Besides, each of us had to explain our three candidate topics to the public, which made all of us understand our topics more.
- Overall, I think we do great at our first debut. We achieve all the goals we set and got some students who are really curios about us, moreover, we got many new ideas form the public to improve our topics.
2017 NCKU Bike Festival
What is 2017 NCKU Bike Festival?
- 2017 March 4th is the 10th NCKU Bike Festival, an event held by NCKU students community enable every high school students and their parents in Taiwan a chance to know every subjects in NCKU. Especially those who haven’t decided what they want to do in the future.
- Since the students in NCKU mainly use bike to going from one classroom to another, the festival provided bikes for visitors a opportunity to have a “sneak peek” at college life.
- This year had 116 stands and more than 6000 people participated, most of the stands are school departments. They will give brief introduction to their department, giving high school student a clue of what they are studying now and what they will do after graduate. There will also have interview practices and campus tour for the high school students, overall it is a joyful, full-packed festival.
- It is a big event that so many people will come, therefore it is a very good chance to promote iGEM and synthetic biology. Besides, visitors are from all over Taiwan, which means we can spread the ideas throughout Taiwan. This is the main reason that make us so eager to join it.
Process
- Actually, being the only few stands that is not a school department, before we stoped them to introduced us, most of them take the initiative to our stand and ask what are we doing. Some of them even ask “Are you a department?” When they are curious, it is the best chance to showed them what are iGEM and what are we doing recently.
- We talked about the three candidate topics that we want to do, and described what issue we want to conquer. But most importantly, we asked them to choose a project that they want the most, and collected their opinion on each topic.
- For us, the main goal is not only promote iGEM but also synthetic biology. We want to let the students and their parents has more information about this new but definitely strong technology, which have already changed the human life a lot.
-
In order to have a little connection to the high school students, we designed a game that is associated with DNA. We want them to understand synthetic biology is not a concept that is extremely difficult to understand but something you have already learnt
a little at school. The game is called The Fantastic DNA Matching, which has beginner version and advance version.
- Lay out all the cards facing down in rows forming a large rectangle on the table.
- The player can only turn over two cards at one turn, if the player successfully making two cards match, they can place it on their stack.
- If the cards are not a match they are turned back over and it is now the next turn.
- 4. The cards are not typical poker, for the beginner mode, we have written the nucleic acid bases of DNA and RNA on it. So a matching pair is not to same cards but two nucleic acid bases that is complementary. For example, A pairs with T, C pairs with G.
- If they can match three pair in five turn they win.
- For the advance mode, we change the words on the cards to genetic code and their function. For example, UAG and stop codon.
The rule is simply same as classic card matching but with a little twist.
- What’s more? We thought that Bike Festival should be like carnival full of fun, that’s why we prepared prizes for the visitors who have listen carefully to our introduction to iGEM and synthetic biology and win the game. Even though most of the prizes are just simple drinks and snacks, we still hope them have a pleasant experience.
Feedback
- Most of the students doubted themselves whether they can win the game or not at first, but after they pluck up their courage and give it a try, they found it fun and interesting. Certainly, some of the students do forget which nucleic acid bases matches with which, but with our little hint, almost every player have successfully won the game. Game is definitely the best way to learn, since you will learn in a pleasant way. Plus, we believe that they will memorize them longer than they learn from school.
- This Bike festival is basically an event for the high school students, however the reality is their parents are actually much more worried than the students themselves, many parents will bring the whole family to come as a family trip which gave us a good chance to promote iGEM and synthetic biology. We get a chance to talk to their parents, brothers and sisters and even their grandparents which is a really good opportunity for us since most of the time we are promoting in the student group. Explaining synthetic biology to elder people is definitely a memorable experience, we learnt how to describe things in many creative ways in order to make them understand easily.
- Of course, we want them to stop at our land for information instead of the prizes. Nevertheless, we tried to take it easy, not being too strict on game and just making everyone leaving with a happy mood.
- Some of the challenges will absolutely be when they come with a group of people, it is much more difficult to catch everyone’s eyes than one by one, you have to ask them question or talking about the synthetic biology in the daily life first to gain their attention. With practicing talking to a lot of visitor, we have all progressed a lot on how to introduced ourselves and how to face listeners of all kinds.
- Even though the high school students can not join our team instanly, we are looking for the future. They are like the seeds of dandelion, and we are trying our best to be the wind that spread them away with hope and new goals that worth fighting for.
2017 iGEM Asia Pacific Conference
We all know that iGEM is not a competition, but a chance to meet others who are also passionate about the synthetic biology and want to use it to change the world. We are really happy to have a chance to join the 2017 IGEM ASIA PACIFIC CONFERENCE and meet with teams from China, Japan and even from America.
WAHT IS 2017 iGEM Asia Pacific ConferenceE?
iGEM Asia Pacific Conference is a meet up for iGEM teams from Asia and Pacific that take turn host by team from Taiwan. Every year, there will be more than one hundred people participated. This year is hosted by National Chiao Tung University.
The Process
The date of the conference is originally from July 30th to August 4th, however, a strong typhoon struck Taiwan, so the conference postpone to July 31st. It is a pity that the conference has to be shortened due to the unexpectedly weather, we still manage to fulfill our every day. Since there is only six of our members participated in this conference, we want to share our members that couldn’t come and the public who care us about what are we doing in the conference. To do so, we post diary with a photo on our Facebook fan page everyday, trying to stay connect with others. They are written with exciting and a heart that want to share what we have learned and experienced. You can join the journey with us as you see the content below.
Day 1
Although the conference was started with one day delay because of two typhoons, we finally met up with all the iGEM teams today. In this conference, iGEM NCKU is led by Professor Wu, there are five members attending the conference, including two wet team
members, two dry team members and one HP member.
We are all ready to establish a good dialogue with every other team! HAVE FUN!
Tonight started with delicious buffet, everyone enjoyed their food and tried to reach out to other team.
However, the talent show was definitely tonight's highlight. Every single team have diligently prepared. Team from China shown us many Chinese cultures, including swords performance, Chinese kung fu, Chinese instrument and etc. Team from
Taiwan have a lot of talent too, including guitar, Chinese instrument, fluorescent sticks and etc. Team from Japan performed some high-technique tricks on Kendama, it is really amazing!
This year, our team prepared a dancing performance, Play, a song from one of the most famous female singer from Taiwan. It was mission impossible for us at first, and we really put a lot of efforts in it, the applause and cheering from
audience really make everything worth it. Even though we have some mistake, we hope that everyone still enjoyed our performance tonight! Good Job to everyone!
Day 2
We started the first morning in Asia Pacific Conference with open ceremony and team introduction, each team’s video fully showed their passionate and adorable personality. Our team was going to present in the afternoon, and we were super excited yet nervous
when we stood on the stage, Although we made some mistakes, we still have a great time with the audience, in the Q and A section, the opinion of the audience really inspired us a lot, we felt so thankful for the idea from every iGEMers. We were
so impressed by the presentation of every iGEM team, they show us many creative ideas and critical thinking in different tracks.
In the evening, instead of joining city tour, we enjoyed our time in professor Chen’s laboratory. We have an interesting talk with professor Chen and professor Wu, they shared their experience in leading iGEM team for many years, which
really broaden our horizons. They even have a hallway that hang their team T-shirt from the very first year just like NBA team. Even though we are a little envy about their well-equipped laboratory we understand they didn’t get it for granted.
They have been through their hard time but they didn’t give up and work very hard. Be BRAVE if you want to strive for the success! Let us achieve the target together.
Day 3
We felt so grateful for a day full of knowledge and presentation. The audience are not afraid about expressing their feeling and always caught the key point of the presentation, ask the depth questions. This reminded us that professor Wu once told us
the importance of critical thinking. We hope that we can always remember the deep feeling of attending the conference even we back to the school, it is even better if we can really practice how to ask right question when we are in class. Perhaps
critical thinking and ask questions in class is very common in Western country, however for the asian students, most of the time we are passively receiving from the teachers. But after the conference, we have set our mind to do some change.
We made a new friend tonight, a Taiwanese girl who studying in the United States.
She is a talkative girl and willing to share her experience and her life in the United State. We visit the campus National Tsing Hua University and enjoy our dinner together even we were a little bit messy due to the sudden pouring. In
the night, all of the participants take their time to get along with each other more and even play some cards game. We felt enriched today, everyone did a great job in this conference!
Day 4
We started our last day at the conference from the most hard-working and most amazing host, team NCTU-Formosa’s presentation. They have very amazing idea and they present in a creative way, we really learned a lot from them. Later, we watched a video
full of memory and reminded us those delightful time and friendship we have made together.
As for lunch, a hearty Taiwan traditional ”Ban Do” really surprised us with a lot of seafood and dishes, we really enjoyed it. It is a feast with many taiwanese dishes, our last meal at the conference really make a perfect ending.
In the afternoon, we went to Taipei with some new friends from NAU. We took a look at one of the most famous and the tallest building in Taiwan—Taipei101 and visited some department store near by. But tonight’s highlight will definitely
be when we were taking a stroll after dinner. Some street artists caught our ears with their amazing guitar sound and voice. Even more, a woman with grey hair dancing lovely to the music they played. After a song was ended, the woman introduced
herself with passion. And she was so smart that she knew our leader was just outshining. Both of them soon became friends and the scene of them dancing dynamically to the music is definitely the best picture on the street of Taipei!
Time flies. No matter what you do, we still have to say goodbye to each other. But at least, we are leaving with a lot of rewards!
Feedback
- The true meaning of iGEM team meeting up is to share and motivate each other to challenge themselves and become stronger. The true meaning of iGEM will never be beating others but to give you a chance to make the world better by using synthetic biology.
- During the 5-day Conference, we met and had chats with other teams from China, Japan, and Taiwan; just until communicating with them then we found the space of improvement for us. These people were intelligent and full of passion paticipating in iGEM. After the presentation of our project, we were questioned about some problems needed to be solved and also inspired a lot by professors.
- We found some presenters from other teams well-prepared and speaking English very flutently. Furthermore, their projects were highly completed and these merits were worth for us to learn.
- While listening the presentation of other teams, we could take a peek at their culture from their project. Different culture makes different vision; all we have to do is understanding their thoughts to broaden our horizons.
- We were most impressed by NCTU Formosa’s presentation. Their presentation was just like a company’s product launch. We thought it was not only detailed but also catching everyone’s eyes. However, the safety issues were needed to find another way to accomplish. Moreover, we found the well construction of NCTU_Formosa — everything for activities and every member seemed to be well-prepared; we think the key for a team to be high efficiency is some people strict with members but in the meantime accepting the possibility for any different voices. We are always told to see further and wider, because iGEM is an international competition and what we’re doing is to make the world, instead of Taiwan only, better.
- NCTU held a really fascinating conference because giving us a really comfortable place to discussed about the biological problem.
- Different countries have different perspectives in one question, we always need to accept others’ ideas so that we can improve ourselves in the knowledge collision.
- Team from Japan focused on the topic of pine tree, we can see their persistent on the environment issues. Sometimes we don’t really care about the environment because we often take it for granted, however, they showed us their responsibility as a human being to save the environment.
- Although English is not our mother tongue language, we still tried our best to use this language to communicate with each other. This is a huge challenge because we feel difficult to explain ourselves to others even we used our mother tongue language. However, we learned so much when we face our fear in this conference.
Tong Kuang Elementary School (TKES)
Educating Program
The background of the TKES educating program
We all know that the future depends on our next generation, and the next generation depends on education. However, we saw some problem in Taiwan’s science and mathematic education. Trends in Mathematics and Science Study(TIMSS) will investigate the 4th grades and 8th grades students achievement and attitude in science and mathematic
| Achievement | Confident in science | Like learning science | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taiwan 4th grade student | 6th place in 47 country | 28th place in 47 country | 20th place in 47 country |
| Taiwan 8th grade student | 3rd place in 39 country | 37th place in 39 country | 35th place in 39 country |
2015 TIMSS result of Taiwan student
In the 2015 TIMSS report, you can find out that Taiwan student is doing great in the science achievement, getting 6th place and 3rd place in 4th grade and 8th grade respectively. Surprisingly, Taiwan student is lack of confident and lost their interest in science. In 4th grade, student’s confident in science and like learning science are still in the average, nevertheless they drop to the bottom in 8th grade. This is because we learning through a lot of memorization, homework, tests and pressure. We study hard in science is basically because we have to, not we like to. For this reason, we want to try our best to change this circumstance.
To do so, we contacted with TKES, a school next to our university. They have been working hard on special science education program for many years, and gave us three classes of fourth grade students to do this educating program, each class have approximately 30 students. Before we started our progrm, it is our honor to meet “Grandpa” Chen, former director of Tainan’s Children Science Museum, who gave us many useful advices:
- Teach them with fun and games, prize is sometimes necessary
- Other then teaching them pure knowledge, talk about their life and use children’s language
- Separate them into groups, the stronger one will learn how to teach others, and he or she can improve in another way
- EXPERIMENT! No one likes to keep sitting their and doing nothing.
After many discussion and revised, this is our plan:
- We are going to do a five-week program, every week we will have two hours to do our program.
- Each week we will choose a topic and gave them a fun science lessons.
- We will give them lessons in question and answer, not just traditional teaching them the answer
- They will be separated in to groups and work together to do some cool experiments that is associated with the topic.
- The last week we will host a quick answer race to see how much do they learnt instead of traditional paper test.
WEEK ONE 04/27/2017
Topic: EYES
What caused myopia? How to prevent it? What is the shape of the eyeglasses? How many kinds of lens do you know? What is blindspot? How do animation make?
Experiment
- Test your blindspot
- Thumb up your both hands and extent them in front of your eyes.
- Close your left eyes, and keep your right eyes staring at the left thumb.
- Slowly move your right hand from the middle to the right side.
- At a moment, right thumb disappear, and keep moving it, it will reappear.
- When the right thumb disappear, that is your blindspot.
- Animation Stick
- Fold the paper into half.
- Draw two picture on the paper, the two picture is going to fuse together and become a simple animation. For example, you can draw a sun on one side and a sunglasses on the other side, and it will become a picture of sun with sunglasses.
- Glue the paper on the stick.
- Quickly rotate the stick and you can see your masterpiece.
Materials:
This is an experiment don’t need any materials but your two hands.
Steps:
Materials:
A chopstick or anything that is stick shape, a piece of paper, some tapes or glue, drawing or coloring tools.
Steps:
WHY WE CHOOSE THIS TOPIC
Taiwan’s students are suffered from myopia, according to the Taiwan Health Promotion Administration, 63.85% of sixth grade students and 76.5% of ninth grade students have myopia. We want to teach them how to take good care of their eyes even under the circumstance that they have to keep staying indoor studying and didn’t get time to go outdoor. Extended from vision care, we talk about some cool phenomena linked with vision, including persistence of vision, blindspot and etc, the experiments are dispersed into the lessons.
The Process
This is our first week doing the program, it is quite nervous yet exciting for all of us. Thankfully, with the tips from Mr. Chen, we can get closer with the students step by step. First step, we divided the students into group of four or five. Second
step, we told them if they answer the question they can get a point, the team with most team can get a prize at the end of the class. This news really make all of them go crazy.
We started the lesson with a lot of questions, and they are all trying their best for the prize. Later, we will talk about the answer of the question.
Followed by the lessons are some experiments. For example, after we talked about the blindspot we taught them the blindspot experiment.
However, WEEK ONE highlight is definitely when we talk about the persistence of vision. We start this topic by asking them their favorite animation which make them really excited. After that we asked them whether they know how to make
animation, which we got a lot of funny answer, children’s imagination is really beyond our imagination. Finally, we gave them the last lecture of WEEK ONE, and it is time for the last experiment, the animation stick. The kids are really excited
about the experiment, and make every effort to draw it pretty.
Their final work are all amazing and really surprised us. Some of them even begged for one more chopstick because it is too much fun, they want to do one more time.
WEEK TWO 05/11/2017
Topic: WATER
What is solution? What is electrocyte? Which solution is electrocyte? How to calculate the concentration and the solubility? What is acid and base? How to know the pH value of the solution? What to do if you accidentally drink the strong acid or base? How to prevent the accident happened?
Experiments
- The Electrocyte Experiment
- Ask the children which solution can light the lightbulb.
- Put in the batteries, put the end of the wire in the solution, if the solution is electrolyte, the circuit can be complete, thus the lightbulb will light.
- The groups that guess it right win.
- Let the children compare three solution.
- The Solution Experiment
- let the children guess how many spoons of salt can dissolve in a beak of water.
- Then add one spoon of salt by the other, until the salt precipitation.
- The group that guess it right win.
- Speed Up！ Solution Experiment
- each group get the same amount of water and the salt.
- the group that first dissolve all the salt win(remember to give them the right amount of salt, if the salt is too much, the game will never end and if the salt is not enough, they will win simultaneously ).
- Think about what will effect the solution rate.
- Purple Cabbage Experiment
- Add each solution in the beak.
- Add the purple cabbage water into the beak.
- Observe the color of the solution.
Materials:
a LED light bulb(traditional light bulb is alright but the LED one is brighter), wires, batteries, three beakers filled with strong electrolyte, weak electrolyte and non-electrolyte respectively (we use salt solution, pure water and sugar solution)
Steps:
Materials:
salt, a beak filled with water, a spoon
Steps:
Materials:
salt, a beak filled with water, a stick to stir
Steps:
Materials:
purple cabbage water(boil the purple cabbage for 10-15 minutes, or until the water turn purple), some beaks, solutions with different pH value(vinegar, soap solution, water, lemonade……etc)
Steps:
WHY DO WE CHOOSE THIS TOPIC
Water is closely associated with our life. We want them to understand that even it looks simple, it has a lot of science in it. Besides, there are many funny experiments that is easy for them to do, especially the purple cabbage experiment, we want them to be awed by the color change. What’s more, children are easily accidentally drink the strong acid and base. To avoid the tragedy happened, instead of prohibit them from it, they should get close and learn what is acid and base and with that understanding, they can use the acid and base in a careful way.
The Process
After WEEK ONE, the kids and us are much more familiar with each other. Before we started, they had already surrounded us and kept asking what is the solution we bring. At the beginning of the class, as usual, we asked them to divided into groups, and
start the lessons with question and answer. They are still really eager to answer.
After the basic concept of what is solution, we talk more about the properties of the solution and interspersed with the experiments. Because we need to use a lot of solution to do the experiment, some are not eatable, to avoid any danger
or any other naughty behavior, we have to have an agreement before we start. They have to follow the rules, otherwise we have to terminate the fun experiment. One more detail is to ask them to clean their table before we handed the solution
to them, in case of they accidentally tipped the solution, nothing will get wet or broken.
Speed Up! Solution experiment, the students are trying so hard to dissolve all the salt and win. During the game, some of them questioned about the amount of salt, they are saying the salt is too much, we will never dissolve them. But
we just told them to believe the magic of the water. They are super excited when they finally dissolve all the salt. However, the losing team then saying something like our salt is more than theirs, it is not fair. After all, they are still
kids who only want to win.
WEEK TWO highlight is the purple cabbage experiment! They are amazed by the color changed of the purple cabbage experiment. But after the color changed, they become too hyped, they tried to throw everything into the liquid, for example,
glue, ink and etc. Then, they add all of them together. They are just too curios about everything.
WEEK THREE 05/18/2017
Topic: AIR
What is wind? How do the wind occur? How to generate wind? What is pressure? What is typhoon? Is Typhoon low pressure or high pressure? How do the typhoon turn in north hemisphere? Clockwise or counterclockwise? What preparation should we do if typhoon is coming? How do airplane fly in the sky?
Experiments
- Air Cannon
- Cut the ballon and the bottle into half.
- Encase one end of the bottle by half of the balloon.
- Carefully pull the balloon out and release, the air will punching our from the other end.
- Paper Airplane Experiments
- There are numerous way to make a paper airplane on the internet, any of them is okay.
- Let the children try their own first, assist them if needed.
- The airplane that can fly the farthest win .
- Think about why it can fly the farthest.
- Parachute
- Carefully cut the plastic bag into a rectangle(do not tear and avoid any hole on the plastic bag) .
- Tape the rope on the diagonal of the plastic bags, the rope should be longer than the diagonal.
- Tape the eraser on the cross of the two rope.
- Go to the roof and see whose can stay in the air longer.
- Think about why it can stay in the air the longest.
Materials:
A ballon, a bottle, scissors
Steps:
Materials:
a piece of paper
Steps
Materials
a plastic bag, two thin rope(fishing line or cotton cord is suitable, the longitude depends on the size of the plastic bag), an eraser(or anything that can stimulate the person using the parachute), scissors, tapes
Steps
WHY DO WE CHOOSE THIS TOPIC?
Every summer, Taiwan will be affected by four typhoon on average. Thus, we want to teach the children the fact about the wind and air. What we care about is that they can understand the science behind typhoon, in Chinese there is a saying “ understand yourself and the enemy then you can win”, this is basically what we want to do. Besides, we talked about flying, a dream that every children once dreamed.
The Process
This week process is a little bit different form the other week. Because the experiments of this week have to go outside the classroom, we are afraid if the children are taking out and doing the experiments in between the lecture like before, they can
not stay calm and focus on the lecture. We decided to implode the lecture first and then do the two experiments.
At first, we were kind of worried about whether they can focus on the lessons for such a long time without any fun experiments. Fortunately, they love the concept of the typhoon and airplane, and have a lively discussion. What really
surprised us is some of the children, a normal fourth grade students, can already explain Bernoulli's principle. Of course they explained it in children’s way, however it is still really impressed.
Absolutely, WEEK THREE highlight is doing the two experiment. Most of them know at least one way to fold a paper airplane, however some do need more assistant. Since there is only three teachers in one classroom, the better way to solve
this problem is to tell the children to teach each other, it can relieve our stress, on the other side, they can learn how to take care of each other. When doing the parachute experiments, the children have more problems, and the teachers
are just not enough. But don’t worry, they have to learn how to solve the problem by themselves, we are their last defense, before we help them, they have to try their best to do it on their own. That’s how we smoothly handle 30 kids with
only three university students.
And finally it is time to go outdoor and give it a try! As we imagined, they were running all the way through the hallway, just extremely excited and happy. During the competition, the children were keep saying one more time unless he
or she win. Nevertheless, we hope they can understand that what really matters is you really enjoy the time and learn something from our lessons.
WEEK FOUR 05/25/2017
Topic: DNA
Why every kid looks different? Do you look like your dad or your mom more? What is heredity? What is the different between you and your classmates? What is DNA? How many pairs of chromosome do human have? How many gene do human have?
Experiments
- Extracting DNA from Fruit
- Put the fruit in the plastic bag and carefully smashed it.
- Add the solution A and the protease in to the plastic bag and shake it evenly.
- Use the filter to dilate the puree and liquid, and keep the liquid test tube.
- Slowly and gently use the dropper to add the 95% ice alcohol into the test tube alone the tube wall.
- Wait for 5 minutes(do not shake it or mix it), you can observe some withe cotton shape DNA was appeared around the border of two liquid.
Materials:
fruit(fruit that is polypoid is better, for example, kiwi, strawberry, tomato……etc), protease(we use fresh pineapple juice), solution A(100ml detergent, 120g salt and 1L water), filter(we use stockings), iced 95% alcohol, plastic bag, test tube, dropper.
Steps:
WHY DO WE CHOOSE THIS TOPIC?
Apparently, we are iGEM team, it is our responsible to introduce synthetic biology to the next generation. However, Taiwan’s student start the biology lesson basically at fourth grade, we are afraid if we just introduce synthetic biology to them, they could not absorb well, so we decided to start with beginner lesson, DNA and heredity. Besides, we want to teach them that every one is unique in his or her beautiful way, and everything is a little present from your mom and dad.
The Process
We start our lesson with a Chinese saying “A dragon will give birth to a dragon, a phenix will give birth to a phenix, and the mice will give birth to a mice that dig holes.” It means that “like farther like son”, heredity can not hide. We ask the children to think about this well known saying and explain what caused this happened. Later, we asked them to look at each other’s face, eyes, nose, mouth, and try to observe different traits. Sometimes they will come out super cute answer, and will fight over wether this is a trait or not.
After basic introduction to heredity, we let the children to discuss in group about what is a cell look like and ask them to come up draw on the blackboard. Of course they can not draw it correctly, we just want them to think first before we tell them the answer.
WEEK FOUR highlight is absolutely the extract DNA experiment. Remember not to hand in the fruit to the children until given them all the instrustions, they want to play with the fruit so badly that they can barely take their eyes away from the materials. Nonetheless, this experiment can burn some of their energy by the first step if the experiment, smash the fruit into puree. They are like the beast finally came out the stage, making their every effort on hitting, smashing the fruit in the plastic bag. Even though we have warned them not to break the plastic bag for many times, they are still causing some trouble and spread the liquid out.
The most funny part is when we ask them to use the stockings to filter the puree and liquid, all of them were shocked and hesitate. Some of them are saying something like“ But this is my mom stockings”, “This stockings are expensive.”, others don’t want to get their hands dirty. After a little breakdown, they try their best to finish the task as a team, with a lot of screaming and laughter.
Finally is the last step of the last experiment of our program, hold the test tube for five minutes. In our imagination, this step should be quite and calm right? However these children actually fight for the right to hold the test tube, and one boy even decide to destroy the experiment because he didn’t get to hold the test tube. Anyway after many negotiation, every team have successfully complete their experiment. Well done!
WEEK FIVE 06/01/2017
Time flies, it is the last week of our educating program! This week we are not giving lessons to them but play the “Jeopardy” with them. The question is from the lecture of past four weeks. Our main goal is not test their memory, but we want to know how is the learning effect in this mean, and a little review of what we have done together in the past few weeks.
RULES OF TKES JEOPARDY
- Each team should prepare a small white board and a white board pen
- Each question every team will have 60 seconds to discuss and write down the answer on the white board
- After 60 seconds, the teacher will ask all the teams to lifted their white board simultaneously
- All the team should lift their white board as soon as the teacher asked them to do so.
- The team with correct answer can get a point, in the end the team with the highest points win.
- Extra rules: To make the Jeopardy more exciting, you can combine Bingo with it. If the team answer the question right, they can mark the corresponding number of the question on their bingo. Thus, instead of the team with highest point win, the team with most lines win. Other than making it more fun, the final winner can’t be determined until the game finished since it add some luck in it, they will fight to the last second.
The Process
Before start playing Jeopardy, we make sure every children understand the rules, otherwise they may fight over the result. To make the kids feel more participation, we tried to create exciting atmosphere, so they can be very concentrate on the game. All of the questions are designed by the three main teachers who were in charge of the lessons in past four weeks, making sure they have all learnt before. Most of the questions are easy but they have to think thoughtfully to answer, however some are more difficult to discriminate their level. Surprisingly, they all doing very good.
For example, almost every team remember there are 23 pair of chromosomes in Human. I can still remember when we ask them this question before, they have no idea at all. We didn’t told them to memorize it and they have no idea we will play Jeopardy in the last week, they just learn naturally, I think this is the best evidence showing that learning should be in a more pleasure way not just cramming knowledges to the students.
Other than the questions with only one answer, we designed some questions that have numerous answers, such as please write down at least one solution that can respectively turn the purple cabbage colors into purple, red and blue, they can write down the solution we use in class and the one they learnt before. Sometimes they do give us some answer that is beyond our imagination and we are kind of not sure the answer, and sometimes they may answer easy questions wrong, however this is a process, a process that children and we are both teaching and learning at the same time.
This week actually start with a little sadness, when the children asked us “Is this the last time you come teaching us?” The answer is a sorry and a yes. We build up the relationship in very short time, nonetheless everyone has to back to the normal school life. At least, when we think of the time we spend together is full of laughter and that is enough.
We are thankful to the teachers of Tong Kuang Elementary School and the students giving us a chance to experience this unforgettable journey and help us a lot, and many other people give us courage and a lot of love, we can never done this without all the help.
