Farseeing educational activities for high school students

Our Human Practice activities include dialogues (debate and interviews), presentations, Bio-Art display and hands-on practices, all of which centered around farseeing. We want to unlock the creativity and intelligence in as many people as possible.

We chose high school students as our start because we're close in age and it would be easier and more effective for us to communicate with them. More importantly, a farseeing youth development is the most critical matter for humankind, and we want to be a part of this noble course.

Step 1. What is engineering nature like — Farseeing camp for high school students to excite their interest in synthetic biology

From our previous survey on high school students, we learned that their current understanding of synthetic biology and scientific research is below our expectation. The majority of them have rarely encountered either of these. To achieve our farseeing youth development step by step, we believe the very first step is to stimulate their interest in synthetic biology.

With this mission in hand, we participated in a Biology Summer Camp that hosted over 300 students from 30 high schools around China. In a half-day section, we shared our research experience in synthetic biology with them. These students also got tours in our school, participated presentations given by our school's Academicians in Chinese Academia of Science, and had face-to-face discussions with professors from different research backgrounds, including but not limited to synthetic biology. By participating in the camp, we have introduced synthetic biology to more high school students.

Through the experience of Fudan iGEMers from previous years' teams (2015, 2016 and 2017 competition), we know that first-hand experience sharing is the most effective way to promote understanding.

During the camp, we tried a captivating way to make young students interested in synthetic biology. Four of our team members, who have been doing extensive real lab research, shared their compelling experiences and thoughts about synthetic biology, in the form of a series of questions and discussions.

Three high schools in Shanghai contacted us after the camp to invite us to their school campus to give a follow-up presentation on synthetic biology. We were delighted to be invited. It looks like we did an excellent job during the camp.

Step 2. What is synthetic biology and iGEM — Farseeing presentations for high school students to excite their participation in synthetic biology

In addition to that one new invitation from a high school we have never communicated with before, we continued our yearly science lectures to several other high schools, with which we had long established relationships over the past years. During all those presentations, we began by sharing general stories concerning biology. We not only shared concepts and potentials of synthetic biology with them but also presented topics on the latest advances in the field, and showed how synthetic biology is changing the world at every moment. We want high school students to learn that synthetic biology is making our lives better. One of our presentation at Fudan University Affiliated High School has been uploaded to YouTube.

Furthermore, our presentations were all aimed to inspire them to form their own perspectives and views about the field. Therefore, in the presentations, we included a myriad of activities to stimulate the high school students to find their own fields of interest and new ideas on what they might be able to achieve in synthetic biology. For instance, we gave examples of the most recent advances in the field of synthetic biology such as CAR-T, CAR-P, our Swords project last year and several equally interesting projects from other 2017 teams. Furthurmore, we brainstormed ideas with our attentive young audiences. We hope our advocation will motivate them to assemble a high school team and participate in the iGEM competition.

Step 3. What else do you want to know? — Online Q & A and a broader education

Through further interactions with the high school students during our presentations and post-presentation discussions, we realized that in addition to the presentation, we needed a more convenient method to promote synthetic biology to high school students, or even more people.

We formed a WeChat Group for online Q & A. Apart from that, we wrote a series of short articles (such as Introduction to synthetic biology-1/-2, Scientific experiment & art and Communication with synthetic biologists) to introduce synthetic biology and iGEM to more.

Step 4. Join us at our lab — Injecting fresh blood into synthetic biology and iGEM competition for students’ further development

Inspired by our presentation, Qibao Dwight High School contacted us and voiced their interest in participating in the 2019 iGEM competition. However, the experimental skills and background knowledge of high school students are not sufficient for them to ideally compete internationally. Thus, delighted by their enthusiasm, we helped to set up their team and equipped them with foundational lab skills for the competition. More specifically, we invited them to our laboratory this summer and taught them skills that they may need such as basic molecule cloning and protein purification.

Also, aside from learning practical lab techniques, we used the time between experiments to teach them some theoretical knowledge. The results from this training were very satisfying! Along with practical lab work, the students quickly understood and readily applied what they have been taught, both theoretically and experimentally.

Equally important, we paid particular attention to their laboratory safety education, both before and during the experiments. During the teaching process of lab skills, we gave them detailed descriptions of the potential risk in the lab, and asked them to memorize these to ensure their safety in experiments.

After spending a fruitful and intense summer together, we collected the student's feedbacks on our training methods and determined what we need to improve in the future. We also discussed with them their plans and goals for participating in the 2019 iGEM competition. Below is a video related to the summer lab training for Qibao Dwight High School students.

The significance of these four steps we have planned and carried out for high school students is that we have mastered an effective method that could potentially attract more high school students to participate in the field of synthetic biology. Their entry would not be merely for prizes, but to promote recognition of synthetic biology and to introduce a whole and new research mindset to these potential researchers.

Here is a summary of our education plan for high school students:
• Start with self-telling an interesting experience which is able to attract the attention and excite the interest of high school students.
  Note: The desirable experience can let high school students get close to you while can still be intrigued by new things.

• 

  Introduce some exciting topics or projects through a public presentation or workshop to inspire the audience to form ideas on how to realize their interests.
• Use the Internet to have an active Q & A, and answer any lingering questions or discuss new thoughts.
• Subsequently, equip them with useful lab skills and teach them sufficient theoretical knowledge to ensure that they are well prepared for the iGEM competition. Desirably, let this take place where the team members work close by so that good role models can be set and lab safety can be ensured.
• Before conducting experimental training, conduct laboratory safety education. This is primarily because most high school students are new to the lab and unconscious about the all potential dangers. We need to keep an eye on them.

Farseeing journal clubs — Constructing efficient dialogues and mutual intelligibility with researchers from multiple backgrounds

Building upon the success of nurturing the high school students, we want our project to have a lasting impact on our surrounding communities, apart from focusing on trying to unlock the imagination of teenagers. Making our project products readily applicable is another emphasis of us.

We have organized journal clubs with doctors at the Institute of Immunology, Changhai Hospital, etc. Over the years, we have built lasting collaborations with them. Doctors are usually too busy working by the patients' bed, and our journal clubs introduce latest research to inspire them. Through those journal clubs, we were able to discuss synthetic biology and medical issues with many people. In these discussions, we tried to promote synthetic biology to various experts from different backgrounds and introduce our project to them. Meanwhile, we also listened to their perspectives on synthetic biology and feedbacks on our project, taking them into account to improve our project.

In the dialogues with these doctors, we learned that although many research results of synthetic biology are widely used, the clinical doctors still lack a comprehensive understanding of synthetic biology. We think it is very dangerous, and the danger is reflected in the following two aspects:
A lack of knowledge of the mechanism is likely to lead to an increased probability of errors in the application of technology;
A lack of comprehensive understanding of synthetic biology has made it impossible for them to make requests to researchers for tool improvements when they encounter difficulties in practice.

We hope to solve the disconnection between foundational synthetic biology researchers and the technology adopters in a sustainable way. We propose a new methodology of constructing dialogue: by explaining what our foundational advance project has achieved in the lab, we asked doctors to come up with not only applications but also alternative designs that are relevant to their clinical fields and hospital settings. We revisited some of the doctors we had interviewed earlier and continued the dialogues with our updated progress.

We propose a new methodology of constructing dialogue: to converse with these doctors and researchers about what inspirations they get and how they can apply our foundational advance iGEM project to come up with designs or applications that are relevant to their field. We re-visited some of the doctors we interviewed and had a more in-depth discussion with them.

During those discussions, several things caught our special attention:

• 

  Doctors in clinical fields may not be very interested in the detailed mechanisms of synthetic biology research. What's more, they have their distinct terminology, like a niche. Project could be more easily understood when we introduced it using their word choice, like going into their mindsets. For example, it is better to say: “Our modified cells are activated in the nidus where brain tissue is necrotizing, and they will then begin to eliminate the symptoms” instead of “Our system recognizes specific signals A and B expressed in ischemic brain tissue which will then activate corresponding pathways to express effectors.”
• We need to let others know that we have carefully considered the safety of our tools, before introducing why our tool is useful.

Farseeing Bio-Art display—The development of synthetic biology requires the understanding and acceptance of the public as the fertile soil for its growth.

Having gained experience in synthetic biology popularization to people outside its research field through traditional lectures, we hoped to apply this experience to another format. We decided to utilize artistic props and artworks as a medium to showcase synthetic biology. Over centuries and nations, artworks are a great way to stimulate curiosity, trigger discussions, and promote more in-depth understanding. This year, we held a campus-wide Bio-ART Display “CELL•LEGO•LOGIC”.

Unlike some simple exhibitions or card signing events in the past, our display invites viewers to join us and experience some of the daily activities of the lab. That is why we use the word “display” to represent this event because its prefix "dis-" means "negative", and "play(-plic-)" means "fold". Putting two meanings together highlights our purpose "to unfold". Through our display, we hope that it can be a means of unfolding synthetic biology and our project (we also picked ENABLE as our project name for a similar consideration). Science should always be transparent and friendly to non-specialists.

The event name “CELL•LEGO•LOGIC” has its special meaning. We try to use LEGO to indicate the modular concept of synthetic biology. Also, “CELL” and “LOGIC” are the two central parts of our project.

Our display consisted of four parts:
• LEGO and Synthetic Biology: We chose Lego pieces to help introduce synthetic biology because they share several similar fundamental traits. Legos utilize small building blocks to organize and construct amazing structures, while synthetic biology similarly builds functional products by using BioBricks.
• Electrical Logic Gates: Logic gates are an integral part of our project. To introduce logic gates effectively, we must start with its fundamental principles and system. Hence, we provided basic but common electrical circuits, electrical boards, and light bulbs for the visitors to have the hands-on experience of signal input, output, AND gate, OR gate, etc.
• Hands-on art activities: The audience may already learn what is synthetic biology and logic gates after the first two parts. Then, we want to bring out the creativity within the visitors by challenging them to present their understanding on logic circuits artistically on blank postcards, which also helped us get first-hand feedback on how the public perceived our project.
• Access to Interactive Lab: Our interactive lab presented the audience with a "lab model" that we built, including many laboratory types of equipment (already sterilized for safety) that are often used. What’s more, we also conducted some training in laboratory safety and delivered some basic sterility concepts to them. It was very successful.

Audiences are further encouraged to write down their suggestions about the display and their views about the ethical problems in synthetic biology. Our foundational project may be applied into clinical practices one day. It is essential for us to learn the general public's opinions on the relevant topics in advance.

We have prepared a particular page for Bio-ART display.

Farseeing debate with the public — We need to hear voices from different backgrounds.

When a novel technology that could potentially have a widespread impact is developed, the public will nearly always immediately focus on its ethical implications and safety. Therefore, we were very curious to find out people's views and initial impression on the safety of our project. Further discussion could lead to the relationship between synthetic biology and morality. To tackle it comprehensively, we organized an open debate. We invited teachers and students from different majors to participate in the debate.

We started the debate by introducing our project, focusing on its potential applications. Then we extended the topic to synthetic biology techniques and ethics, where we debated the relationship between artificial life and morality, such as
• What are your views and evaluations on the safety of our project?
• What do you think could be called artificial life?
• Can artificial life be treated in the same way as natural life?
• Is the creation of artificial life morally significant?

Click here to know more about our debate.

This university-wide debate was truly rewarding for everyone present. We saw great potential in synthetic biology on impacting the world. We truly hope other people can share this vision and help ensure that ethical principles are always upheld in this field for the safety and future of everyone.