One of our team members once told us that she had a hard time explaining to her little sister what she was doing, since what synthetic biology is about was too abstract for a secondary school student to get to the core of it.She raised a question: can we use a more accesssible way for children to understand what this 'synthetic biology' thing is?
Soon, another team member of SKLBC_CHINA joined a field trip in Yao,a minority area in South China, with secondary school students there. At first, she took for granted that students there must be suffering the lack of essential facilities for science learning and therefore result in superficial understanding of science and technology, having no idea about what science can do to change their life. However, as she spent more time with the students, she found out that the facilities in their biology or chemistry classroom were not bad comparing to those in the city. What hamper them to develop and explore their interests in science are the outdated teaching methods of their teachers and the lack of access towards up-to-date science that is closely related to real life.They need something that can transform the abstract science concepts to tangible things and connect the high-end technology with their life.
When she came back and talked about this experience and idea, we held a discussion together. Because of the empathy from all of us about the poor science education condition in contemporary China, we decided to create an "Education and Public Engagement Project"to find an unconventional way to spark the curiosity of science among teenagers. As we delved into this problem cooperating with AiJu, gradually, we were aware of the rigid perception towards science education and unequal education resources distribution behind this seemingly easy-to-solve problem and were more determined than ever to continue this work.
Only a few of us had the experience of developing innovative educational tool kit before our first meeting with AiJu, yet we managed to learn as much and fast as we can and eventually created a prototype of an innovative educational tool kit for the dissemination among Chinese students such as by presenting bio-bricks with blocks and circuit board.

1 kg Bio-Box, an innovative educational tool kit that is highly reusable and combines the learning process of synthetic biology with multiplayer games and studying aids, allowing kids to learn with fun and proceed the learning process unconsciously under systematic guidance, is developed in the cooperation with AiJu, a famous social enterprise in China focusing on extending creative education in schools in China. The purpose of 1kg Bio-Box is to facilitate self-learning in synthetic biology among teenagers and spread basic concepts of synthetic biology to the public. In the future, we are convinced that synthetic biology will be a crucial field in scientific research as well as the advancement of mankind. What we found effetive to cultivate , is by creating an educational tool kit that of this tool kit. Through the usage of 1kg Bio-Box, students establish fundamental understandings of this subject and obtain necessary inspiration at the beginning of their study in synthetic biology, while us instructors can reflect on the essence of science and take up the social responsibility.

Abstract

The contents of 1kg Bio-Box include an elaborately designed comic book, serving as a user guide and the other , a few "tips" boxes containing paper that is essential for the following usage of the box, a fixed circuit board with battery and interchangeable bulbs or fans, a number of blocks with wires inside of them. All of the above form a multiplayer game involves teamwork and basic understanding of synthetic biology.
With the help of 1kg Bio-Box and our instruction, participating students are expected to find the answers to the following questions:
·What is BioBrick?
·What can BioBrick do?
·How can BioBrick change our life?

Step 1

Equally distributed students in a class into several groups, and the master of the activity(teachers or activity leaders) will take control of the activity.

Step 2

Each participant must read the comic book(the user guide) carefully. At the beginning of the book,it creates a background for the game and enables children to use their imagination to fully immerse themselves in this virtual world. It is a story about a contaminating river in their village and students must seek for the decontaminating solution to prevent the whole village from running out of water few days later. As the story in the book proceeds, more information about synthetic biology will be inserted into the plots to help participants form a general impression. For instance, the possible solution implied in the book is to modify certain bacteria to eliminate the harmful ions in the water. And how? Students need to change something inside the bacteria's body by the following processes.

Step 3

At the end of the comic books, students will be led by the plot to the reading of rules about the game-running GEM.

Step 4

After reading the rules thoroughly, students need to complete various tasks while competing with other groups under the guidance of the master. Synthetic biology is integrated into all the tasks. For example, the first task requires students to replace certain words in a paragraph with other words to change the paragragh's meaning to fit in particular circumstances. This task simulates the process in synthetic biology that we can change certain biobricks in a plastid to form a new part for new purpose. All of these analogies will be wraped up at the end of the game. Each group will receive tips of varying quality(distributed according to the time they took to complete the previous task. The fastest group receives the most detailed tips.) that can help them finish the final task by absorbing the knowledge in the tips and doing essential analysis. During the competition, the tasks' degree of difficulty will increase gradually, decided by how much it requires logical thinking in the mindset of synthetic biology and the knowledge of synthetic biology reflecting on the tips. Here are a few exercepts from the tips.

Level 1:

·Best tips

The words that you just used to replace the old words are resemble to 'BioBricks'. We can tell from this name that it's something similar to bricks, or building blocks. Different bricks have different functions, just as different words indicate different meanings. You can combine these 'BioBricks' together to make various, technically speaking, 'parts'. Afterwards, various parts produce various things that serve for various functions, just as paragraphs consist of various words show various meanings.

·Medium tips

Try to connect a word called 'BioBricks' with the words you just used! It helps you achieve what you want it to be!

·Challenging tips:

'Biobricks'? Bricks!

Level 2:

·Best tips

'Promoter' & 'terminator' are particular kinds of bricks that swith on/off the work carried out by the bricks between them. They cannot show functions like other bricks, yet without them, other bricks will be simply placed there without any usage. Just as after assembling an air conditioner, only when you connect it with the switcher will it be able to work for you.

·Medium tips

'Promoter' & 'terminator' are switches that turn on/off the works carried out by the bricks between them.

·Challenging tips:

'Promoter'& 'terminator' are switches.

Step 5

When the game comes to its final part, students will have to use the tips they collected during the previous competition to complete the final task-assembling certain blocks in the circuit board to meet the requirement put forward by the master to realize particular functions or results, such as using block A,B and C to light up the bulb or using block A,C and E to make the fan runs. To make the assemly more interesting, the shape of the correct connection of the blocks will turn out to be a bit complex. Once the final element works, it means that the river is decontaminated successfully by the students!

Step 6

When the game is over, the master will do a wrap-up about this game. The master will connect pieces of information which students collect in the game, and help them form the general picture of BioBricks and furthermore, synthetic biology. A group discussion among students about what they learn from this game and their puzzles on synthetic biology will be carried out.

Highly Reusable

1kg Bio-Box is not a disposable product but a highly reusable one that can be used for a long timNot only school teachers or other teams can use 1kg Bio-Box to spark the interests and cutriosity in synthetic biology more than once, students themselves can keep the box or recommend it to their peers.

Handy To Operate

The word "1kg" clearly represents the handy feature of our Bio-Box. Not only is it convenient to carry around, but it is easy to understand and convenient for self-study as well. Both students themselves or teachers can use this box without instructors but simply read through the comic books to know the structure and rules.

Use Entertainment As a Medium of Education

Instilling knowledge in the traditional way is likely to cause the loss of interests among teenagers, especially knowledge that includes lots of brand new concepts which need quite a while to fully understand. Thus we integrate basic concepts into the story plot as well as the design of the game, allowing students to absorb the information through analogy or simile. Meanwhile, the connection between synthetic biology and pleasure will be established unconciously in the students' minds.

Make Synthetic Biology Accessible To Everyone

When considering the realm of synthetic biology, we tend to connect it with high-end technology or convoluted experiments, which may baffle lots of students at the first glance of this subject. Therefore, in order to dispel the fear of students to get closer to synthetic biology, we transform the seemingly intangible "synthetic biology" into concrete objects, such as blocks representing biobricks, circuit board standing for a plastid and the bulb's light representing the function of the DNA recombinant plastid.

As one of the most famous social enterprise aiming at promoting education innovation in China, AiJu has abundant experience in the design of innovative educational tool kits and the promotion of strong social influence. According to the 2012-2013 annual report of AiJu, the number of their beneficiaries is as follow:

With the huge potential social impact brought by AiJu, our long-term cooperative parter, we hope to expand the influence of 1kg Bio-Box, iGEM, synthetic biology, and innovative education to more places in China.

Denpending on the plentiful school resources in AiJu, we would like to introduce this product that is produced after elaborate consideration and great efforts of our whole team to schools around China, using this simple yet practical box beyond the extent iGEM. Throughout the process of the design of 1kg Bio-Box, numerous materials on current education condition and investigations among secondary schools and primary schools led to our reflection on the rigid science educating methods in China and the education resource gap between urban children and their counterparts in the countryside. By the promotion of 1kg Bio-Box, we wish to provide a possible sollution and draw social attentions towards these issues.

Human Practice

Meetings with AiJu

After exchanging ideas through the Internet with staffs in AiJu, we held several offline meetings thereafter to discuss the process of 1kg Bio-Box development. At the first meeting, we primarily talked about the topic of the box, whether it should be biobricks, experiments, or others. Eventually, considering the limited chemistry and biology knowledge of our potensial user, we put our focus on biobricks, the base and one of the key concepts of synthetic biology, which is comparitively easy to understand and can also provide a peek of synthetic biology. Afterwards, we began to draw the outline of the box's design and divided our team into two groups, one focusing on the hardware part of the box while the other designing the contexts, games, and rules. The next time we met with AiJu aimed at improving the draft of the box from the perspective of professional education tool kit developers. We learnt a lot from the suggestion from AiJu about the essence of innovative education and how to make your product understandable by comics, figures, analogies and so on. Having revised the design of the box for countless times, our prototype of 1kg Bio-Box version 1.0 came to publin on June 12th, 2015.

Students Explored Synthetic Biology With 1kg Bio-Box

On July 3rd, SKLBC_CHINA brought 1kg Bio-Box to a local secondary school, carrying out real usage in the public for the first time. During the activity, students showed great interests in the concepts of synthetic biology and fully immerge themselves in it.

Our Reflection

Science is developing rapidly as more and more investments from public or governments are poured into the fields of researches or academic works. However, despite the flourish of high-end science, we should never forget about those teenagers who live in challenged life condition or stressful studying environments yet are eager for further exploration in science. They have great potentials that cannot be underestimated. They need someone to ignite that fire deep in their hearts and help keep it burning. As high school students, we may not be able to rid them of the tough situations by making huge political or economical changes, but we can use our creativity to give them essential encouragements and make the best of the resources and knowledge that we manage to help them along this way. Furthermore, it is not merely a one-way "assistance", but a bidirectional learning and reflecting process for both the organizers as well as the participants. What the students gain from this activity are happiness and desire for more knowledge, while what we, the designers of the box, walk into their lives and establish a connection between seemingly callous science and innovative education.

Online Promotion

With the help of vatious platform on the Internet and the Wechat platform of WEiGEM2.0, we specifically create a page for 1kg Bio-Box, introducting the basic information, values, user guides, and accomplishments of 1kg Bio-Box, in an attempt to extend the influence of 1kg Bio-Box and encourage more iGEM teams to us in the efforts to promote synthetic biology among teenagers.