Human Practice
Synthetic biology is a newly emerged interdiscipline in need of novel concepts and creations, which calls for the participation of young people. In 2011, iGEM brought High School Division into being. We believe that the high school participants will bring a new perspective to this new field.
Tsinghua-A team 2012 communicated with high school students on such issues as the concepts of synthetic biology ,the applications and the prospects ,with the help of ITCCC(International Teenager Competition and Communication Center), a Chinese organization devoted to the promotion of science and technology competitions for young people, on August 17,2012 . They high school students showed great interest and enthusiasm for iGEM and synthetic biology. Meanwhile Mao Yong, the vice director of ITCCC, who is preparing to organize iGEM HS, communicated with us on issues about out laboratory, the advantage and major of our team members , their scientific research experience, etc.. Also, we exchanged opinions on the responsibilities and obligations when undergraduate iGEM participants served as a director for high school students.
Besides, we collaborated with our sister teams, Tsinghua team and Tsinghua-D team, the other two iGEM 2012 teams in Tsinghua University. These three teams are composed of members from different colleges in Tsinghua. Our team members come from School of Information Science and Technology and the School of Science, while the other two teams are comprised of students from School of Life Sciences. On September 21,2012 we held a joint lecture on synthetic biology for students from different domains, organized by the Association of Science and Technology of School of Life Sciences. In the lecture, we reviewed our experience on the iGEM project and how we combined the research of synthetic biology with our respective majors. The audience were quite impressed and attracted by this project and synthetic biology.
http://itccc.org.cn/index.html
http://itccc.org.cn/igem.html