Rather than a competition, for OUC-China, iGEM is also a trail of education. We learned and trained ourselves as hard as possible. We applied fund as much as we could, and we did get a lot of kind supports.
It’s obvious that we would make amazing achievements with such intensive resources. Consequently, we have the responsibility to share, to inspire, and to involve more people in independent investigation. We carried on this original mission from 2011 OUC-China, and expanded our own.
Hands-on experience Camp
Background
Today, high school education in China is typically exam-oriented. Under the huge pressure of college entrance examination, high school administers allocate almost all resources to improve promotion rates, neglecting chances for practice. That becomes the motivation for the Hands-on experience summer camp.
Action
We assist Association for Science and Technology (OAST), to which our team belongs, whose mission is stiring up research interest and improving necessary skills of students, to hold this camp.
Except interesting practice like making specimens of butterflies, painting with our thermosensitive regulator and combing beach, we had a lecture for the camper about Synthetic Biology and a brief introduction of our project, which is a new horizon for them. After that lecture, we discussed about biosafety and security.
We found that it’s a good way to fill our safety gaps through White-Hat Hackers role-playing game, and it’s amazing to see that our project could have so many cool usages:
(1)insert Magthermo Coli(MC) into wild animals to interrupt poacher’s electronic devices.
(2)Plant MC into brain and induce them at specific site by electromagnetic signal to erase memery.
(3)Spread MC on enemy’s military base to interrupt their devices.
(4)Paint MC on bodies to climb on buildings.
(5)Help track wreckages.
(6)Manipulate consciousness.
……
Inspired by Synthetic Biology, which is highly integrated with biology, math and engineering, campers realized that only fully grasping biology is stupid, and got prepared to study widely. Some of them were also excited about the rapid manufacturing Synthetic Biology could bring.
However, we learned more from their deep thoughts and imagination about Synthetic Biology:
(1)Human’s manipulation of creatures, which is extremely unequal, may lead to genocide.
(2)Disturb the normal rate of evolution.
(3)Creating human-like creature, to whom identify itself would be harsh.
……
By the way, we gave them an introduction of iGEM, and we are glad to help them build their high school team if they are ready.
LST Camp
Background
Unlike high school students, undergraduate students do have resources. On the contrary, many of them lack awareness or approach to make full use of resources around, not to speak of experiencing research procedure.
However, there are undergraduates who have already found their way to move on. What they need is communication, to get inspired from others and adjust themselves. That’s what we need, too.
From 2011 to today, we have witnessed more and more fellow students participate in professors’ research, practice in Chinese Academy of Sciences, take part in competition and etc. Nowadays, the role of Life Sciences and Technology Summer Camp has changed—not only to get more fellow students involved in research, but also provide a chance for communication.
Action
This summer, we held the 5th Summer Camp of Life Science and Technology. “Cherish Dream” was the core idea: Unlike the 1st Summer Camp, our mission is not training potential iGEMers but inspiring more people to explore student- directed education. With the help of clubs from other university, who share the same goal, we attracted campers from Ocean University of China, Shandong Agricultural University and Lanzhou University. Every part of this camp was meticulously prepared:
After icebreaking party, we camped on Zhucha island and made a marine ecological investigation, after which a closer relationship was established. Over the next several days, we invited them to visit our lab, shared operating experience of iGEM team and OAST, introduced biosafety and how to manage it in lab. Every night, we did literature-based on research, through which campers made deep communication in necessary skill for academic exploration. To make camp fun, we did experiments, debate competition, star-gazing. We also gave them lectures on philosophy, biosafety, synthetic biology, our project, Gibson Assembly and how we introduced it. In this camp, we really thank Prof. Bo Dong, Prof. Guanpin Yang who gave us valuable lectures. The camp traditionally ends with jamboree, where campers show their fantastic investigation.
Campers from brother clubs and university inspired us, too. Their collaboration with professors really set us thinking: professors offer club several subjects, club members could do their experiments in professors’ lab. Senior members teamed up with junior members, ensuring rapid progress for juniors. This pattern assures members get more professional training, while less autonomy.
They agreed that iGEM is a good way for students training, however, too costly. We discussed about that and came up with several ideas, like combination of students entrepreneurship and students research.
iGEMers training camp
Background
As we mentioned from the very beginning: for us, iGEM is competition-like education.
Originators of 2011 OUC-China tried their best to involve more students in research through constructing iGEM team in our university. They succeeded in an epic scale—from 2011 to 2014, through iGEM training, iGEMers in each year made huge progress for themselves. It’s obvious that after iGEM training, students are much more effective in professors’ lab. Inspired by iGEM, more students started exploring ways for practice.
In our university, after each year’s iGEMers great efforts, iGEMers can acquired plenty of resources—much more than other fellow students can acquire, however. It’s obvious that 2015 OUC-China has met new mission: expand the range of beneficiaries.
Action
Our action is simple: training more students as potential iGEMers starting from earlier date.
The first issue we have to concern is making more fellow students know about iGEM and get interested in it: In April, when we are still brain-storming, we selected the final 6 alternative projects and hold a conference calling for advices. More than 50 students attended, many of whom gave interesting advices on our projects, and showed their excitement about this competition.
The second issue is attracting students: Just one week after the conference, we did a presentation about our team and then announced recruitment. It’s a surprise that more than 40 students attended the interview, and 27 students were left.
Then comes the toughest issue: making progresses with 2016 OUC-China. Every weekend, we got together with 2016 iGEMers. We firstly tested them on their weekly assignments and watched their presentations on literature research. This was their first stage training: store up knowledge and grasp basic skills for literature research, which are useful for any research. Although announced that training is under a elimination system, we didn’t knock out anyone, just for the purpose of getting more students involved in this competition and benefit from the training.
For the very beginning, we found it harsh to advise our 2016 iGEMers while running our own project. Things have changed since they become stronger and encourage us from time to time. And it’s quite moving that they themselves found labs to practice in the last month, the toughest period for us. We hope they could do a better job!
