Summary

When we were doing our project of the community of synthetic biology, we were always thinking that public should know more about it and they need to join our community. Synthetic biology is powerful, but to most of the citizen, they haven’t heard about it. After comparing of different ages, we thought high school students and college freshmen are the most suitable groups for popularization of synthetic biology. So in the presentation parts, we focused on guiding them. We went to the best two high schools in Shenzhen, and we had a public course on synthetic biology to our freshmen.

High Schools

Shenzhen Experimental High School

In Sep 25th, we went to Shenzhen Experimental High School to give the students there a public course, and we answered their interesting questions.

The public course included the history of synthetic biology, and we described it with a very easy way for understanding. Then we talked about the basic idea and knowledge of synthetic biology, and helped them to understand how we can build a new circuit. After that, we focused on the safety and humanity of this new subject, which is the most important part to let citizens accept this mysterious thing. The last part was about iGEM, and this was the most interesting part; those students were very interested about it.

They provided us a lot of questions, such as “Why do we need to use E.Coli to be the basic part of synthetic biology”, and “Were the project commercialized?” We answered these questions in detail.

And they showed a lot of interests in iGEM high school competition. We gave them our brochures of synthetic biology and iGEM, so the students who didn’t have the chance to take part in the public course could know and learn things about synthetic biology and iGEM.

Some students in Shenzhen Experimental High School stayed here then for they had many questions. And the guys who wore our team clothes were answering the students' questions.

The students were trying our 3miao community. Obviously they were very interested in the fancy mind map.

Shenzhen High School

In Sep 26th, we went to Shenzhen High School to give the students there a public course, and what’s more, we had a communication with their teachers and we finally had a common view of cooperation in synthetic biology in the future.

The public course was the same as we had in Shenzhen Experimental High School. It included the history of synthetic biology, and we described it with a very easy way for understanding. Then we talked about the basic idea and knowledge of synthetic biology, and helped them to understand how we can build a new circuit. After that, we focused on the safety and humanity of this new subject, which is the most important part to let citizens accept this mysterious thing. The last part was about iGEM, and this was the most interesting part; those students were very interested about it.

We had a very cheerful conversation with their teachers that they tried our software and we decided to have a cooperation of popularizing synthetic biology in their school in the future. That’s a big step of popularizing synthetic biology in Shenzhen, because they are the best high school here, and they can lead other schools to know and learn synthetic biology.

The 1st slice of our public class. We named the course as "The technic to write life" in Chinese, and "Life is what we make it" in English.

We applied a big conference room for the students who wanted to have a deeply discussion. All the students were talented and interested in synthetic biology, iGEM and our project.

College Freshmen

In Sep 11th, we had a public course in our school. The public course was the same as we had in Shenzhen Experimental High School. It included the history of synthetic biology, and we described it with a very easy way for understanding. Then we talked about the basic idea and knowledge of synthetic biology, and helped them to understand how we can build a new circuit. After that, we focused on the safety and humanity of this new subject, which is the most important part to let freshmen accept this mysterious thing. The last part was about iGEM, and this was the most interesting part; those students were very interested about it.

What’s more, we gave these students who were very interested in this field a course about the details of experiment and knowledge, and we invited our professors to give them more guiding. Of course, we let some freshmen join our job, in order to let them know the working environment of iGEM, and to let the tradition of iGEM can continue in the next year.

This freshman asked some interesting questions about synthetic biology, and our team member answered his questions with patience.

This guy is our team member. He is showing what we have done and what we want to do to freshmen.

Feedback

Although we had no experience in synthetic biology, after this course, I have been totally fascinated in synthetic biology, because creature is the most interesting and mysterious thing in the world, and synthetic biology let human control creatures!!!

A student from Shenzhen High School

Thanks for your presentation. We need to have a team to take part in iGEM. It will help our school and our students a lot.

A biology teacher in Shenzhen High School

You’ve done a so great project!!! I wish I could perform like you in some day in a project like this!!!

A student from Shenzhen High School

Although we had no experience in synthetic biology, after this course, I have been totally fascinated in synthetic biology, because creature is the most interesting and mysterious thing in the world, and synthetic biology let human control creatures!!!

A student from Shenzhen High School

Although we had no experience in synthetic biology, after this course, I have been totally fascinated in synthetic biology, because creature is the most interesting and mysterious thing in the world, and synthetic biology let human control creatures!!!

A freshman in our school

The iGEM project of our school in this year is creative and full of passion. No matter what the result is, I think they have done a wonderful job in these monthes.

Qie Boyu (2012 IGEM SUSTC team member)