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Team:Peking/HumanPractice/Sowing
From 2012.igem.org
Summary
We have done a remarkable job in motivating high school students to study synthetic biology and guiding them towards future participation in the iGEM high school division.
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Motivation
Synthetic Biology possesses enormous potential for the applications in boosting a nation’s economy and improving people’s lives, as well as enhancing people’s understanding of the origin of life. As an emerging field combining conventional biology with physical sciences and engineering principles, synthetic biology calls for more lively and intelligent young men and women to generate ideas with considerable potential. This was the motivation for the 2012 Peking iGEM team’s human practice project this year, “Sowing Tomorrow’s Synthetic Biologists”. Based on this goal, we desired to motivate the young minds of high school students to study synthetic biology and guide them towards future participation in the iGEM high school division.
Achievement
1.We briefly made a survey regarding high school division iGEM in Beijing and distributed it to students at The Second High School attached to Beijing Normal University (SHSBNU) in order to learn about these students and their interests regarding synthetic biology.
2.We formed an alliance with the Beijing Teenager Science & Technology Club (BTSTC) in order to make our human practice project a long-term plan. We also wanted to propagate for a lecture we intended to present to high school students.
3.In mid-July, we gave a series of lectures, “Life as Machines --- Rational Design for Artificial Biological Systems”, to Beijing high school students. We introduced to them the idea of synthetic biology and the iGEM competition, and motivated many of them to participate in the iGEM high school division in the future.
4.We wrote and disturbed a questionnaire to these students after the lecture, and by analyzing this data, we obtained crucial information regarding their opinions and intentions, and even obstacles in their way. This made the next step clear for us.
5.Guided by the questionnaire, we wrote a report for the application of funding for iGEM-HS in Beijing, and began to guide three students from the SHSBNU towards their future participation in the iGEM competition.
