High School Inspiration

Figure 1.

The TJU iGEM team presented the "Exploring Synthetic Biology" curriculum to high school biotechnology classes. The TJU iGEM team is working with various high schools around the Tianjin City to start iGEM teams. In addition, TJU iGEM is working with Bioscience high school to develop a project idea for the 2013 high school iGEM competition. A series of academic lecture and collaboration had been organized, aiming to popularize iGEM and Synthetic Biology. Finally, we invited high school students with interest in biology to our laboratory and teach them do some basic operations.

We cooperated with Ruijing Senior High, and showed some students who are interested in biology around labs in Tianjin University . We arranged lectures to introduce synthetic biology to them, and encourage more high school students to take part in High School Division of iGEM. We gave senior students insights into biofuels and other green fuels. We showed some simple experiments to them, such as operating pipettes and centrifugating, and allowed them to try out by themselves. We also delivered them comics about biology, such as Beautiful Scientific Stories, to lead these young students into the biologic world.

University Guidance

In this part we influenced universities related with biology in Tianjin. We shared our ideas with them by lectures, visits and interviews, and we successfully helped Nankai University start their first iGEM team.To help these universities without any iGEM teams have a deeper insight into iGEM and join us in the competition, we contacted with universities with bio-related lessons and experimental conditions, including Nankai university and so on. We helped more iGEM teams to grow with our joint efforts.

Figure 2.

In the first stage, the main members of TJU-IGEM make appointment with the leaders of Students' union. We had a relaxing and friendly chat in the resting place in Tianjin University. Our team members introduced IGEM from the basic concept to the schedule of competition. The concrete and feasible plan was put in place. Both sides set the time for the IGEM introductory session after negotiating. This campus talk aimed to attract students in Nankai University to join IGEM. After that a new team could be build sooner. In addition, our leader gave guidance on team member cultivation and funding preparation. The chairman of Students's Union of Nankai University appreciated our detailed introduction and explanation. In the ending of our meeting, we provided them enough material including our past wikis and pictures. Considering strong research abilities of NKU and useful experience of TJU-IGEM, we both have enough confidence in a new team to construct.

In the conference room at Nankai University, we organized a propaganda activity named "start your IGEM journeys". A lot of aspiring students from various kinds of majors who want to take part in the next IGEM competition participate in our activity. In the beginning of the propagandist conference, we introduce the background of IGEM and give a brief description of the whole process of the competition. Then, we conclude the previous wonderful case of Tianjin IGEM team, of course, we also talk about the failed experience to announce them not to make the same mistakes again. In the end, as successfully pave the way to the final jamboree, we also arranged a Q&A session to address the Nankai students who doubt on the other parts of the competition. As soon as the conference is end, many students express their wishing to join us.

In addition to the meeting, Nankai students expect us to give some experimental guidance. So we decide to have another exchange activity in the laboratory. This time, we visited each other laboratories and work with them in the lab. We hope that through our presentation as well as the intriguing experimental process an increasing number of individuals will be impressed by the natural miracle and devote themselves into the field of molecular biology.

A reserve Nankai IGEM team is established! After a series of activities, many students are registered for the IGEM team. We decided the final list through the selection from our team and Nankai CAST.

In the future, we will contact other universities in Tianjin to join us by offering opportunities and platform for them and to contribute to the development of synthetic biology.