Team:Hong Kong-CUHK/HP SURVEY HS

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SURVEYS - High School Outreach

We conducted surveys during our high school outreach to investigate how high school students think about the different aspects of Synthetic Biology, and we aim to find out what key point are in our education program.

Before we began any activity, we handed out surveys to find out if our participants have ever heard of iGEM or Synthetic Biology.

Figure 1 – Responses of high school students regarding iGEM and Synthetic Biology.

From the above results, we found that 43% of our respondents have heard of either iGEM or Synthetic Biology before.  For the remaining 57%, our outreach was the first time they had encountered these topics.

After providing a talk or workshop, we conducted a second survey to compare students’ thoughts on the same subjects before and after the activity to evaluate the impact of our outreach on their opinions as well as collect comments about our team’s projects. Our findings are as follow.

Since working with microorganisms such as bacteria is a major component in the field of Synthetic Biology, the first point of our investigation was the students’ opinion about bacteria.

Figure 2 – Responses of high school students regarding bacteria.

Before the presentation, 58% of the students have no particular opinion on bacteria, but after hearing the talk we gave, 61% of the students think bacteria can be beneficial and useful, and the result showed a 10% decrease in students finding bacteria dangerous.

Since genetic engineering is another major aspect of Synthetic Biology, we asked what students think about it.

Figure 3 – Responses of high school students regarding genetic engineering.

After the presentation, there was an increase of 10% of students found genetic engineering interesting, and an increase of 20% thought genetic engineering is essential. Furthermore, the percentage of student

As a presentation was given, we asked students to rate the efficiency of our talk and comment on which parts they found most interesting.

Figure 4 – Grade of our presentation according to high school audiences.

To carry out an effective and educational program, we had to ensure that the students liked and understood our talk, and as shown above in the Figure 4, a majority of the audience thought the talk deserved 4 out of 5, on a scale of 1-5, in which 1 equals to poor, and 5 means excellent.  Most of the students like our talk, by grading 4 or above. We then found out which part of the talk the students liked the most by asking the next question: “What do you like about the talk?”

Figure 5 – Students’ impression of the talk. [Change the “rate” to “grade”]

From the above investigation, we found that students valued the inspiring synthetic biology projects and its concepts while also understanding the central message and aims of iGEM and the Synthetic Biology field.

We also asked students if they would like to join the iGEM competition, should it be implemented in their high school, or when they enter university. About 70% of our respondents showed interest in contributing their efforts as shown in the chart below.

Figure 6 - Percentage of high school students interested in joining iGEM.

High school iGEM has launched last year, but more than half of the high school students did not know iGEM or Synthetic Biology. So there is a need to promote these topics to the younger generation. According to the other figures, we found out that giving a talk with inspiring application of Synthetic Biology grabs the students’ attention the most. It also helped a majority of our participants to acknowledge that microorganisms can be beneficial and useful when handled carefully with proper procedures. We introduced those examples that students are familiar with, such as data storage and energy crisis. With an actual experiences of carrying out laboratory work under demonstrators’ guidance and explanation, high school students had a much clear idea about bioengineering, and the results displayed a decrease in percentage of students finding genetic engineering a confusing scientific field, while a greater percentage were given a better understanding of the field and find genetic engineering essential and interesting.  Overall, an educational program could be an effective human practice of Synthetic Biology.

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