Difference between revisions of "Team:Jilin China/Improve"

Sketching Kit – An intuitive tool for curiosity.

For a convenient transportation and distribution, a box to content all necessary tools and materials for pupils was taken into consideration. After several group discussions and contacts with suppliers, we finally decided to use corrugated cases as containers. Each case would contain 2 disposable culture dishes with chloramphenicol add medium, 4 disposable sterile inoculating loop a booklet to introduce microorganisms and an instruction with a drawing template. (links to supplementary)

With the help of STEM Platform, we prepared a drawing class for pupils as our kit’s first trail. Culture dishes were prepared at the night before the day we set off, all materials were packaged that morning. Then, iGEMers begin their teaching day!

Why we choose pupils?

In our country, primary students received only basic science knowledge courses and seldom have chances to participate in a hands-on experiment. What’s more, their understanding of the micro world remains superficial. Some of them even hold the opinion that all bacteria are harmful but never have a look of those tiny lives. Letting them get a close look of microorganism in a macroscopic way may help them learn more about cytobiology and a vivid mechanism of molecular biology, which would stimulate their interest in further study. And, pupils are a group of people who are full of curiosity. Hence, we decide to hold a drawing class for them, by using bacterial liquid as pigment. Therefore, masterpieces come into being.

Happy Memories

We came to United Experimental School of AHSJU (Affiliated High School Jilin University) and Livon, where a series of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) classes was being held to pupils in whole Changchun city. All kids were at place when appointed time has come. Our iGEMers firstly guided them into the micro world. To our surprise, a question asked by our team members triggered a fierce rushing to answer!

Therefore, we helped kids equipped well and distribute them our sketching kits, teaching them how to draw with one-to-one instructions. Finally, more than 50 dishes were collected, sealed, and brought back into incubator by our members. Waiting for the blossom of artist works.

Online Communication Contributes to Feedback

After the class, we kept in touch with those kids and their parents, by creating a chatting group online. To our delight, the class successfully draw some kids’ attention, instead of purely having fun in drawing. On the way back to laboratory, they started asking us questions. Some screenshots and translations are listed below. (For privacy, we blurred their nickname and portrait)

🧒🏻@Rrrrrebekah🍩 Hello teacher. My name is Xinhe Liu. I have 2 questions that I don't understand: 1) why those bacteria have colors? 2) why skin color doesn't change when people got sick and bacteria were produced in the body?

👩🏻‍🏫@lar As what we have mentioned in class, the phenotype of living bodies (for example, the color of bacteria) is controlled by DNA. However, scientist can transform the DNA. The original version of this kind of bacteria doesn’t have color. But the bacteria we use today were added special kinds of DNAs that can produce color, which means we transform it to make it produce color~
👩🏻‍🏫The bacteria that cause illness are not transformed by us, so it won't change skin color.

🧒🏻Oh! I got it. Thank you teacher. I didn't catch it in class😜
It seems that this kid is interested in the color of bacteria, and he misunderstood the relationship between the colored and the harmful kind. Meanwhile, we realized that we taught too fast. The teaching skills needs to be improved. After a while, another kid asked questions:

👩🏻‍🏫Feel free to ask any questions at any time!😀

👦🏻Hello teacher. I'm Haoran Ma. I have a question for you.🙏 Bacteria can fall into two kinds, beneficial bacteria and harmful bacteria. What good could them do to human body? or will it could turn into harmful bacteria suddenly?

👩🏻‍🏫Beneficial bacteria vary a lot. Take lactobacillus as an example. The lactobacillus in our body can promote intestinal peristalsis, and they can activate immune cells to enhance immunity. The benefits that it could bring is a great many. 😀 And in recent study, scientists have found an amount of different kinds of bacteria have connections to cancer, hypertension and other illness, and their mechanisms are under discovering.

👦🏻Thanks, teacher👏🏻.

👩🏻‍🏫For the second question, I think the beneficial won't change into harm under stable conditions. However, if you take it in too much, the beneficial would be harmful, like diarrhea. 💩

👦🏻😱.
👦🏻Thank you for helping.

👩🏻‍🏫Actually, there're also some neutral bacteria in gut. They help the beneficial when the beneficial become dominated in gut while help the other on the contrary. In a word, microorganisms vary a lot. And gut microbial problems remain to be explored.
👩🏻‍🏫Thank you for your questions.😀
This kid paid more attention on the effect of bacteria. And his worrying proved the necessity of our class. However, we somehow failed to deliver the right concept to them in class. Our next class needs to be reconsidered.

Fantastic Works

One day passed, we checked dishes. Colonies had formed. Some of them are corresponding to the given template, some are not, while others are too abstract to recognize, but looks pretty. We believe they want to draw their own story! Then, we took dishes pictures and post them to the group. Before destroying them, we put them all together, and removed caps, taking a group photo!