ENGAGE WITH THE
NEXT GENERATION
Engagement
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INTRODUCTION
The Next Generation?
The next generation does not mean kids literally, But the group of people who
Gets to know synthetic biology for the first time and get curious about it.
It has no relationship with ages, positions, or something. If you start to get curious about synthetic biology, you are part of them.
OVERALL PREPARATIONS
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Booklets
a Guide-in Textbook
Booklets are regarded as one of the most concise and attractive tools for public, which run through our EPE. We designed 3 editions of booklets, providing appropriate information for each age in a diverting but precise form. We have uploaded PDFs and offered a translated version onto our wiki, see HP Supplementary.
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STEM Platform
Mr Qu Baofeng, manager of STEM center in United Experimental School of AHSJU (Affiliated High School Jilin University) and Livon, has been working as a physics teacher for more than 20 years. Hoping to help more teenagers get in love with science, he became a leader to promote STEM courses in Changchun. We believed that he can give us help in our EPE activities as an experienced science teacher. After a brief introduction of iGEM and synthetic biology, he was greatly interested in it, strongly supported us and provided STEM platform for us to spread synthetic biology. Meanwhile, he gave us some suggestions about Education and Public Engagement, which inspired us a lot.
SEE OUR JOURNEY
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1. Sketching Kit
Tools for Curiosity
To spark curiosity, we initially tried to make a tool for attraction. We came up with an idea to utilize chromoprotein and E.coli for painting when we use GoldenGate Construction, then ‘Sketching Kit’ was born! 1 booklet, 1 sketching template, 1 instruction, 1 culture dish, 4 rings and 4 tubes of bacteria pigments were in it!
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1.5. Drawing Class
for Pupils
Who would be the first group of people that benefit from our Sketching Kit? The answer is pupils! And they’re definitely easy to be attracted with colors and drawing! We decided to introduce micro world to them and let them draw paintings. The kids were excited and made some masterpieces! After the class, they asked some brilliant questions on the WeChat Platform. Here is curiosity!
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2. A Serial Course
for Junior
After the journey with pupils, we knew that we were supposed to promote synthetic biology to more generations. So, we gave a serial course for junior high students step by step: Micro World, Gene Engineering, Circuit Building… With the guidance from STEM teachers and reflections from students, we continuously perfect our teaching paces, methods and attitudes. Some students did show great interest in biology and excellent ideas were brought up!
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2.5. Cir-Kit
Civil Circuit Building
After the first two parts of the serial class, we found out that hands-on experiments are always the best for students to learn. Due to the difficulty of learning what biobricks, devices, systems are, we designed and provided a Cir-Kit for them. We introduced ‘AND Gate’ and asked them to build an ‘OR Gate’ with same elements. To our surprise, one student finished it in just 4.5 minutes!
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3. TEDxJLU
With the purpose of sharing technology, entertainment and design, TEDxJLU is the best place to promote synthetic biology. Thanks to the president of TEDxJLU, ‘Regenesis’ was successfully held with more than 100 people, not just JLU students, participating in. Our team members introduce synthetic biology and iGEM from different views. Providing our Cir-Kit again to them, they took active part in the activity and most of them finished!