Team:SCUT-China A/Practice Engagement
ENGAGEMENT
We also made a catoon to illustrate what is gene and how transgenosis happen.
Students of our school has formed teams and participated in iGEM for six years, and we are going to carry the torch. As students have passion and favor, and with the support of our school, we established SCUT-iGEM club in the beginning of 2017.
During the winter vacation, we had a short course on synthetic biology and invited professors to give lessons which enjoyed great welcome among the students. We also invited some senior students to share their experience about iGEM which interested the freshmen and inspired them to start a team to prepare the competition.
Many freshmen were potential members of the next year’s iGEM teams. They had amazingly great passion but also required the basic knowledge of synthetic biology and the understanding of iGEM. Thus, we instructed them to read academic reviews of synthetic biology as well as previous iGEM wikies and let them give presentations to share what they learn weekly. During the presentations and discussions, we would point out their sparkle and flaws, discuss with them and put up with solutions of their problems.
In May, some freshmen of our school began forming the team for next year’s iGEM. They were industrious, brilliant, creative and confident. We often had discussion with them and give some guidance to their ideas.
In 5 th March, we participated in a seminar held by Guangdong Science Center, the largest science museum in Guangdong, China, to introduce our project to the public. We successfully raised public awareness of heavy metal pollution via this activity and told people the examples of using synthetic biology methods to solve the relevant pollutants problems.
Guangzhou Tianhe District Government hold a big science illustration contest, aiming to popularize scientific knowledge to the public. Our team took part in the contest, and illustrated the basic concepts of synthetic biology to the public.
We and BGI club hold the life science knowledge contest which contained a number of questions of synthetic biology and provided material for the participants to learn before the competition. This contest attracted great attention at college, with more than two hundred people involved, many of whom were non-biological students. It was exciting for us that some students told us they got interested in synthetic biology through this match and hoped to learn more about it！
As the School of Life Science of Sun Yat-sen University hold a biological festival, we enjoyed the company with the iGEM teams of Sun Yat-sen University and South China Agricultural University. We set some interesting games such as using bricks to design devices, forming personal circuits, and combining parts to achieve certain aims. Besides, we introduced our projects, iGEM and the basic concepts of synthetic biology to all others together.
We were honor to invite professor Zhaozheng Guo，the head of Bioethics Committee of National Gene Bank, to launch a lecture about bioethics at school. During the lecture professor Guo guided students to think deeply about the issues of biosafety and let them realize that in strict conditions, the researches and applications of engineering bacteria are safe.
In the summer our team members went to a primary school for sanxiaxiang (a program under which officials, doctors, scientists and college students go to the countryside to spread scientific and literacy knowledge and offer medical service to farmers). We used cartoon images to teach children what are bacteria and how to recognize them trying to inspire children’s interest in biology,
We and SYSU-Software carried out a synthetic biology popularization in Guangzhou No.2 High School and briefly introduced the basic concepts and mechanisms of transcription. After we finished the introduction of our project, some students asked questions about the mechanisms and then we explained to them to make sure they fully understood. We’ve got more people to know about synthetic biology and iGEM through this teach-in.
