In Human Practice section, our team has done the following:
1. Create a survey
2. Mayor's visit
3. "Hou yi shoots the sun" project
Team:SZMS 15 Shenzhen/Practices
Human Practice
Create a survey
When we came up with the idea of our project, we though it would be fun if we let students from school to vote for which story we would tell in a biology experiment. Therefore, we created a survey and it was widely spread. Over a hundred students, teachers and parents participated in this voting and helped us settled all three stories in our project.
We did a questionnaire on iGEM and biology engineering. This questionnaire is distributed on WeChat (similar to Facebook), and attendees taking it consisted of students, parents, and their colleagues, most of them are in Shenzhen. As we can see, these people interviewed are mainly in middle class families or even better. Since Shenzhen is one of the most economically developed cities with a relatively low average age, a high education level among people and the highest urban population, it seems that these group of people would be more open at biology engineering than other Chinese people. However, the result we gained is not really satisfying. The sample we got was chosen by convenient sampling and the size was around 500, therefore this sample might be somehow representative.
As we can see from the graph, even if we consider these group of people as rational and well-educated on biology, there are still half of the people who whether holds discriminations upon this subject or being simply ignorant for biology engineering.
Here are some of the cross checks we have done for questions:
As we can see from the graph, current students seem to be more tolerant on Bioengineering since they are more likely to receive the latest information on this subject. However, people at work, especially some parents born before 1970s and in China, tend to be more conservative. This is probably because what they experienced may lead to a belief in rumors on Bioengineering that thinks it only creates unnatural creature that harms the whole environment. While most people desire for a genetic therapy for cancer, many are simultaneously resisting microbiology that actually contributes to the therapy. It is easy to get that there must be a stereotype planted in people’s mind that needs we iGEMers to remove it.
Therefore, in both the questionnaire and our publicity, we announced that we will relate their childhood memories to iGEM, believing that recalling people of their favorite fairy tales, fables and legends when they are young may make people feel that biology can be so engaging. Moreover, by performing Chinese traditional legends to iGEMers around the world, we become able to advertise the beauties of our culture to the world.
One more thing, the initial purpose of relating stories was not to educate kids, but was to retell stories, to remind adults about their good times when they were young, gathering around their grandparents for fantastic stories. Awkward our logic in the parts might seem, once they learned our attempts, a smile on their face would be our great gratification.
One more thing, the initial purpose of relating stories was not to educate kids, but was to retell stories, to remind adults about their good times when they were young, gathering around their grandparents for fantastic stories. Awkward our logic in the parts might seem, once they learned our attempts, a smile on their face would be our great gratification.
Mayor's visit
SZMS has been participating in iGEM for two years and our team gained attention from students and caring parents. In order to ask for support from the school for this year’s team, we asked for help from the school board. However, not only our school principle came to visit us in the lab, but also the mayor and teachers from city education committee. After introducing our project, we got financial supports from our school.
"Hou yi shoots the sun" project
Considering we are from China, we added this traditional chinese heroic epic into our project. We hope that through our project and introducing both iGEM and our project, people all over the world, more or less, can appreciate chinese culture.
Open lab day
Last year, we had a Open lab day and the lab was available to all the citizens. We introduced our laboratory, experiments and our projects to them.
During the summer vacation, Tito Jankowski and Jelmer contacted us and visited our laboratory. He was a previous Igem team member in Brown University and intended to corporate with us in his possible built of public Biolab named “Biocurious” (website: biocurious.org and ctecv.com) in Shenzhen. We showed him around and introduced our project briefly.
During the summer vacation, Tito Jankowski and Jelmer contacted us and visited our laboratory. He was a previous Igem team member in Brown University and intended to corporate with us in his possible built of public Biolab named “Biocurious” (website: biocurious.org and ctecv.com) in Shenzhen. We showed him around and introduced our project briefly.
Warning: Lab safety
1. Staffs should not eat anything in the laboratory, including LB agar, gel and plasmids in DD water.
2. When cutting the gel, staffs must wear lab coats.
3. Gloves must be worn before experiment.
4. Laboratory must be cleaned every time after experiments.
5. Lab instruments must be washed after used.
6. LB agar left after use must be sealed in order to avoid drosophila.
7. After turning off the ultra-violet light, air current must be on to blow out the ozone for three minutes before staffs do experiment in clean bench.
8. Be gentle to open the fridge to prevent culture plates from falling out and crashing into pieces.
1. Staffs should not eat anything in the laboratory, including LB agar, gel and plasmids in DD water.
2. When cutting the gel, staffs must wear lab coats.
3. Gloves must be worn before experiment.
4. Laboratory must be cleaned every time after experiments.
5. Lab instruments must be washed after used.
6. LB agar left after use must be sealed in order to avoid drosophila.
7. After turning off the ultra-violet light, air current must be on to blow out the ozone for three minutes before staffs do experiment in clean bench.
8. Be gentle to open the fridge to prevent culture plates from falling out and crashing into pieces.
E.coli, in our project, turns out to be a lovely and amicable story teller. Our project exploits a new region in the application of gene engineering --- it truly steps into people’s daily lives instead of only appearing in scientific research and industry. People from children to adults can all get acquainted with gene engineering. Like Lego toys, the creativeness of Biobricks can also spark children’s interest in synthetic biology.
