Team:USTC/Human Practices/General HP

Questionnaire

This year we are devoted to turning tobacco waste into drugs. Because China has the largest group of smokers and the largest industrial scale in the world, tobacco-related issues have always been a hot topic in society. Naturally, we want to collect the community’s views about tobacco. Meanwhile,For the purpose of propagating iGEM synthetic biology, we designed a questionnaire. We have collected 337 samples at all, with absolutely reliable data to analysis and come to conclusions eventually. The final result is very interesting and quite helpful for our topic.

1. Respondents

H1

H2

H3

2. The Knowledge Of Nicotine

H1

H3

This data makes us feel very surprised, there are happiness and regrets. First of all, almost everyone knows the existence of nicotine in tobacco. More than 58% of adults know that they can use nicotine to produce drugs. This is a great encouragement for us. Our subject can be widely accepted andunderstood by society. Unfortunately, there are very few people who know the potential of nicotine drugs among minors, but that is exactly why we are constantly promoting.

3. Views on cigarette and tobacco industry

H1

Generally speaking, we do not support smoking. According to the data, more than 74% of people never smoke, and,even so, most of the smokers investigated are concentrated in adults over 30 years old. This data is still very gratifying. People from all walks of life have basically the same views on the advantages and disadvantages of the tobacco industry. Very few people think that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The descriptions when they choosed the options show that everyone knows the disadvantages of smoking, but some smokers are also very straightforward to write that they can’t help smoking. Smoking has become thire habit very early. This seems to be the same as the tobacco industry in society. In China, the taxation of the tobacco industry exceeds the total tax by 7%. Its existence seems to have become an indispensable part. When we collect statistics on how to reduce the harm caused by cigarettes, “Limit The scale of the tobacco industry”is the option that elected the least. The people are quite rational about the tobacco industry.More than 44% of people think it's hard to say that the existence of the tobacco industry is good or bad, and their reasons are also the relatively high angle of “existence is reasonable” and “the tobacco industry provides countries with extremely high taxes”,etc. Reducing the harm of cigarettes to people is undoubtedly a long way to go.

4. The Knowledge of Tobacco Waste

H1

This part of the data is not unexpected. The public does not know much about the waste of the tobacco industry. Fortunately, our other HP work will show this knowledge in detail. I believe those who have already done the questionnaire and are concerned about our subject can definitely have a deeper understanding of tobacoo waste and tobacoo industry.

5. The propagation of iGEM

H1

Among minors under the age of 18 and adults over the age of 30, the proportion of people who know iGEM is really small (less than 25%), but in the 19-29 age group (more than 92% are college or undergraduate),the proportion is quite high (more than 50%), indicating that iGEM's promotion among college students is quite successful. Expanding its influence throughout society is a further advocacy work for iGEM. (At the beginning of the questionnaire and tips for some questions, weposted the iGEM official website hyperlink and continue to introduce iGEM and synthetic biology knowledge.In other words, the promotion of this questionnaire also greatly promoted iGEM and synthetic biology.)

Community Propagation

" Science Open Weekend " has become a famous event in Anhui Province, drawing thousands of citizens from all over China. This year from May 19th to 20th, team USTC joined in the event. We made many slips and help visitors to explore the microbial world through a microscope.

Education

In addition, we contacted with the instructors of the Middle School Attached to University of Science and Technology of China (KDFZ) and managed to share our experience with middle school students. On October 12, we went to the Middle School Attached to USTC to give a lecture. More than 150 high school students attended our speech. We introduced iGEM and synthetic biology. The lecture was a great success. After the lecture, we had a close communication with them. The students showed great interest in how to do scientific research and how to design and complete a project. In order to further promote iGEM, we also had a detailed interview with the school's leader, Mr. Huang, to introduce the current situation of the iGEM high school groups in China. We encouraged them to set up a high iGEM team and analyzed the existing conditions for them to complete a iGEM project. The teacher agreed with us and showed the hope to let high school students involve in iGEM.We plan to establish a long-term cooperative relationship with each other. Under the teacher's enthusiasm, we also visited their laboratory.

Help of building new iGEM high school teams

We have finished the lecture mentioned above in the KDFZ(The Middle School Attached to USTC). Taking this opportunity, we actively contacted KDFZ's instructor and conducted a detailed interview. We introduced the current situation of the iGEM high school group in China, expressed their hope that the KDFZ can become an iGEM team, and analyzed the existing conditions for completing the iGEM project: instruments, funding, and so on. The teacher,on behalf of the school,also hopes that their students will participate in the research work of iGEM, and establish a long-term cooperative relationship with us.In order to participate in the experiment for their students, they applied to the lab of China University of Science and Technology, and we are happy to accept it.

We also contacted the teachers of Hefei No.1 Middle School to ask if there is any willingness to establish iGEM high school team. They did not give us a direct reply, but we kept friendly contact with them, and we delivered both iGEM and synthetic biology promotional materials to them,with the hope of their joining iGEM family. We will continue to expand our influence in the surrounding areas and develop more cooperative relationships. We wish that more outstanding high school teams will join iGEM!