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Team:Peking/HumanPractice/Outreach/Visiting
From 2012.igem.org
Summary
We briefly made a survey about iGEM-HS in Beijing and went to The Second High School attached to Beijing Normal University (SHSBNU) to know more about high school students. We realized that the students have little knowledge about Synthetic Biology and iGEM.
Visiting Team ZJU
Peking iGEM team and ZJU iGEM team have traditionally been in tight connection. Since Peking is the 1st runner-up in 2010, and ZJU is the 2nd runner-up in 2011, both of the two outstanding teams know that we could learn a lot from each other's experience and improve the ideas and designs of both team through the free discussion. Therefore, on July 27th, 7 members of Peking 2012 iGEM team launched the 3-day journey to Hangzhou, the most beautiful city in China, and launched the open communication with ZJU 2012 iGEM team.
Figure 1. Peking University and Zhejiang University.
Figure 2. Group photo of Peking and ZJU iGEM team members.
After our arrival, we were invited to go to the restaurant near Zhejiang University for some food and drinks and had a nice chat with the ZJU 2012 team members and the leader of ZJU 2011 team.
Figure 3. We had a nice dinner with ZJU iGEM team members!
On the following day, we went to the laboratory of ZJU 2012 team. Both teams got the chance to introduce their team members, give a presentation of the project they were working on. After discussing our projects, we began to introduce the theme of our human practice.
Figure 4. Hongyu Xiong (Shrine), the deputy leader of Peking 2012 Team, is introducing Peking’s project to ZJU’s members.
Figure 5. Yan Yan, a member of ZJU 2012 Team, is introducing ZJU’s project to Peking’s members. (Yan is on the right.)
In fact, before our arrival, we thought to work together on a project of Human Practice, addressing lectures related to iGEM and synthetic biology to high school students in Zhejiang Science and Technology Museum, as a continuation and expansion of our HP project "Sowing Tomorrow Synthetic Biologists". We provided event planning and contacted with the person in charge of museum, ZJU designed and printed the post and tried to contact with teachers of several high schools in Hangzhou. However, due to summer holidays, it was difficult to call together high school students. At last, we had to give up this collaboration. However, we still motivated members of ZJU iGEM to continue propagating Synthetic Biology to high school students in Hangzhou. In fact, they did a good job after we came back to Beijing!
Figure 6. Tianqi Chen, team leader of ZJU 2012 Team, is discussing Human Practices project with us. (Tianqi is on the left.)
Visiting Team OUC-China
Our exchange of ideas with ZJU was very helpful to us, and we thought it would be a good idea to organize another outreach communication. From July 28th to 30th, the other team members went to Qingdao and had a serious discussion with Team OUC-China on projects and human practice.
Figure 1. From the year 2011, the high school division was enlisted as one of the three main components of iGEM competition every year, with only 7 teams participated. In 2012, over 40 high school teams worldwide took part in the HS-Division contest, out of which there were only 3 Chinese teams, whose performance was below average, due to lack of support and experience. We could anticipate that there might be over 100 HS teams across the world participating the competition in 2013, as well as more Chinese teams. Thus, it is necessary to promote the awareness of SB and iGEM among high school students.
Survey on participation for the iGEM HS-Division.
In early May, several of our team members went to The Second High School attached to Beijing Normal University, one of the top high schools in Beijing. We visited the school Molecular Biology Laboratory, took photos and had a chat with the lab manager and the principal's secretary.
Figure 2. In early May, several of our team members went to The Second High School attached to Beijing Normal University and visited the school molecular lab.
In fact, most of high schools in Beijing have been equipped with sophisticated devices enabling students to implement experiments in their spare time. However, not only the students have little knowledge about Synthetic Biology and iGEM, but also they have no academic support towards their experiments, as the teachers said.
Figure 3. The Pipettors in the SHSBNU molecular lab.
Therefore, according to the situation, we decided firstly to promote the high school students' awareness of Synthetic Biology, then to discover and solve the problems that limited their participation in iGEM, and finally to guide them toward future engagement in this grand international Jamboree.
