Human Practice

High School Students- Macau

Survey Analysis: Macau High School Students (60 students)

Before the talk, we handed out survey to measure their familiarity with iGEM and Synthetic Biology as well as Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon and Benzo[a]pyrene.

As shown on the graph above, more than 50% of our Macau high school students have ever heard of neither synthetic biology nor iGEM. Similar to Hong Kong students, 39% have heard of synthetic biology before is quite high compare to the iGEM competition.

Despite of their carcinogenicity, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon and Benzo[a]pyrene are not well known among Macau high school students.

After the Talk
After the talk, we handed out another survey to measure their understanding and response on certain topics to be investigated.

We explored whether the Macau high school students are willing to discover Synthetic Biology further or not after our talk.

We wanted to enhance awareness the hazards of Benzo[a]pyrene and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon through our talk.

Most of the Macau students are more aware to hazards of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon and Benzo[a]pyrene after the talk.

We have obtained results based on individual view of synthetic biology of our project.
The following results are obtained by discussing synthetic biology in correlation from one’s environment.

From home, what makes information is well known is by involving family members to spread the knowledge and news. Unfortunately, majority of parents do not know what synthetic biology is. This is shown in the following results.

Beyond home, religion has been a great issue for synthetic biology. The correlation between religious beliefs to acceptability of synthetic biology among the students is illustrated below. We do not have any figures for Macau’s religion statistics, but our survey indicated that most of the students are non-believers.

The results indicated that, there is various insight of synthetic biology among different religious beliefs. Non-believers most welcome synthetic biology well.

The results from religion and personal point of view are similar. This shows that Macau high school students’ view on synthetic biology relates directly to their religious belief.

Macau’s economy relies mostly on Tourism. We asked the Macau high school students on which one they prefer, knowledge-based or tourism?

 

 

The response is 50:50 for favoring knowledge-based or tourism-based economy. The majority of students believe that synthetic biology will be an integral part of knowledge-based economy.

Lastly, we also asked their interest in joining iGEM.

Majority of Macau high school students are interested in joining iGEM in the future. But the interest is not as high when compared to Hong Kong students.

Comments about our project: What do you think of using bacteria to degrade cancer-causing pollutants?

• Brilliant
• Excellent
• Fantastic
• Great challenge
• Improving Medicine field
• Inspiring
• Promising
• Very Useful

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Email: kingchan@cuhk.edu.hk  Tel: (852)-39434420  Fax: (852)-26037246