Difference between revisions of "Team:HFLS ZhejiangUnited/Human Practices"

What's the meaning of our project? From the beginning of the IGEM preparation, we struggled to find the answer. The purpose of science is permanent -- bringing benefits to human society. Thus, we conducted our human practices, including the survey and 2 promotion campaigns in the science museum, to seek the social impact we could create.

China is a special country, different from traditional developed countries, such as America, British, and France and also different from normal developing countries, such as South Africa and Brazil. China contains the largest population base which is over 1.3 billion people, so, many social issues have their traits, so-called Chinese characteristics. We conducted a deep survey considering formaldehyde, a popular and unique social issue in China. When it came to the diversity of samples, we adopted both an online survey and traditional survey using papers, which finally got a satisfactory result.

Q1: Do you know formal？

In the first question, we wonder that how well do citizens know about formaldehyde. Surprisingly, 74 percent of people claim that they have known about formaldehyde, and only 5 percent of people know nothing about it. The data proves our previous thought that formaldehyde is an especially popular social issue in China, so it should have an important social meaning and breadth. We believe that if this issue can be solved, there will be a large social impact on the majority of Chinese.

Q2: How well do you know about formaldehyde?

It has mentioned in the first question that 74 percent of people have known about formaldehyde, and this result has also been supported by the second questions. It shows that 77 percent of people have more or less understanding about formaldehyde, knowing its basic knowledge. We also have to pay attention to the statistic that only 0.5 percent of people have professional research on formaldehyde, illustrating that formaldehyde is an abstruse question in the general public. Although they know some fundamental properties upon this issue, lacking its deeper understanding causes wrong judgments when encountering high formaldehyde concentration. The data of this part strengthened our desire to organize human practice to popularize useful knowledge about formaldehyde.

Q3: Would you pay attention to the concentration of formaldehyde in our daily life?

This question exposes the severity of the formaldehyde social issue. It presents that although majority know formaldehyde is kind of material that could cause cancer and other serious diseases, they choose to ignore it in the daily life. Over half of people suggest that they will test formaldehyde concentration only if they feel uncomfortable about it, which could miss the best treatment time and even can lead to death. Those 26 percent of people who never care about formaldehyde would take an even bigger risk of the serious effects. Considering the low awareness of excessive formaldehyde concentration, we feel anxious about the attitude showed by the general public when we are collecting the data. So we want to focus more on the right measures that prevent people from formaldehyde poisoning. Besides, we are curious that if we could invent an easier way to test the formaldehyde concentration in the room to avoid serious result caused by people's unawareness.

Q4: Decoration in a new house would generate formaldehyde, so how would you judge when to move in?

In this question, we want to know more about ways people are currently using for formaldehyde concentration checking. Because is a multiple-choices question, we choose the three highest options to analyze: Keeping the house empty for a year, using active carbon or other physical methods, and using plants to absorb toxic gas. Noticeably, most the people would not choose to invite an expert to test it. Instead, they use ways to decompose formaldehyde based on their own life experience, which lacks the scientific evidence to certify whether the concentration reach the standard. So we could infer that people's solutions are not only appropriate, but also irresponsible for themselves and other people live in the house. At the same time, we know that we should provide an easier way in order to make it accessible to citizens.

Our project contains the detection of formaldehyde and the degradation of formaldehyde. The following three questions confirm our intention to use synthetic biology to solve formaldehyde issue.

Q5: Do you think current technology could solve the formaldehyde issue?

The fifth question reveals the general understanding of formaldehyde degradation. For 38 percent of people, because their careers are not related to this issue, they would not pay attention to the scientific improvement in this field. Thus, our research and activity have a significant social impact on their basic understanding within this field, which could largely reduce death rate caused by formaldehyde. For 50 percent of the people who believe such technology can efficiently solve the question of formaldehyde, they are possibly students or some white-collars who have their own evaluation and attitude toward the technology development. They can better accept the concept of synthetic biology and may have the deeper comprehension of our project. In a business perspective, people who can understand the principles of formaldehyde degradation correspondingly will be easier convinced by our theory, which means that at least 50 percent of the people will be our potential "customers".

Q6: Suppose today's technology could solve the problem, which one do you think is the most efficient?

In the sixth question, we found that all other three choices share nearly equal rate except the choice “use special material to sealing the formaldehyde”, which matches three methods of solutions: physical method, chemical method, and biological method. Among the three methods, the one with highest pick rate is using a transgenic plant with the ability to absorb formaldehyde, matching with the biological method. People probably give this conclusion because of their daily experience, believing certain genetic period responsible for formaldehyde absorption, which conforms to science logistics. Also, the low pick rate option “use a special material for sealing the formaldehyde” indicates that people refuse the incomplete decompose of formaldehyde. The finding gives us an important indication of the direction of research, which would base on the ultimate complete degradation of formaldehyde.

Q7: If the methods above could solve the problem, but have some shortcomings, which one would you choose?

Our project contains the detection of formaldehyde and the degradation of formaldehyde. The following three questions confirm our intention to use synthetic biology to solve formaldehyde issue.

The fifth question reveals the general understanding of formaldehyde degradation. For 38 percent of people, because their careers are not related to this issue, they would not pay attention to the scientific improvement in this field. Thus, our research and activity have a significant social impact on their basic understanding within this field, which could largely reduce death rate caused by formaldehyde. For 50 percent of the people who believe such technology can efficiently solve the question of formaldehyde, they are possibly students or some white-collars who have their own evaluation and attitude toward the technology development. They can better accept the concept of synthetic biology and may have the deeper comprehension of our project. In a business perspective, people who can understand the principles of formaldehyde degradation correspondingly will be easier convinced by our theory, which means that at least 50 percent of the people will be our potential "customers".

In the sixth question, we found that all other three choices share nearly equal rate except the choice “use special material to sealing the formaldehyde”, which matches three methods of solutions: physical method, chemical method, and biological method. Among the three methods, the one with highest pick rate is using a transgenic plant with ability to absorb formaldehyde, matching with the biological method. People probably give this conclusion because of their daily experience, believing certain genetic period responsible for formaldehyde absorption, which conform to science logistics. Also, the low pick rate option “use a special material for sealing the formaldehyde” indicates that people refuse the incomplete decompose of formaldehyde. The finding gives us an important indication of the direction of research, which would base on the ultimate complete degradation of formaldehyde.

The seventh question is the analysis of the pros and cons of the four choices given in the sixth question. We list advantage and the potential risks of every method objectively, which could let people to make their own judgment. We can see from the graph that after listing the advantages and disadvantages, the difference between physical, chemical, and biological method become bigger, up to 15 percent, which proves people’s support to the biological method. But Chinese fear of transgenic objects is the difficulty we are facing in the project. However, through the analysis of the research statistics, we found that people’s opposition to transgenic is not as apparent as the concern of incomplete decomposition of formaldehyde; this makes us more confident at exploring the project further.

Q8: Where do you get the information about formaldehyde?

The last question focuses on the HP lecture. Knowing how people learn the knowledge can help us better estimate people’s mastery of the knowledge in formaldehyde decomposition, which can facilitate the process of popularization of science.