Inclusivity

True assistance stems from profound understanding of them. So we first interviewed Prof. Zhang Yuexin from the School of Special Education at Beijing Normal University on May 6^th.

Figure 2: Interview with Prof. Zhang Yuexin

Prof. Zhang pointed out that visually impaired children are not very different from ordinary children in terms of their learning styles. We unintentionally lower expectations for visually impaired children, and this lowered expectation is itself a form of bias. “You need to think about not only how you are going to impart knowledge, but more importantly how you are going to adapt to the way these children learn.” She suggests utilizing multi-sensory teaching methods(Click here to view), such as tactile and auditory.

“Before you begin, it's a good idea to have the opportunity to interact directly with visually impaired students to hear their voices and learn about their world,” she said.

Engaging with the Community

To truly get in touch with the visually impaired, we began by visiting the Chinese Braille Library on May 9th. It is the only state-level Braille library in China open to the whole country, and is a comprehensive public welfare cultural consulting service organization.

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Figure 3: Visit to the China Braille Library

During the visit, we've realized that poor eye habits and disease-related vision loss are major causes of visual impairment, leading us to reflect on the necessity and importance of eye care education.

Fortunately, we encountered a visually impaired student who was studying her college course. She shared her profound curiosity about the world and extraordinary determination in pursuing her goals. This deeply moved us, and we decided to take more concrete actions to help them, starting in two key areas below.

Figure 4: Talk with a visually impaired student

Raising Public Awareness

First, we aim to increase public understanding of them, focusing our care on their needs and fostering a mutual exchange of inclusivity and love.On June 27, 2024, Helen Keller's birthday, we organized an outdoor event, creating a platform for the public to gain deeper insight into the lives of the visually impaired.The event is organized on the campus of Beijing Normal University. Those who participated could experience:

• How to write Braille.Participants learn to write in Braille and write down their heartfelt blessings for the visually impaired community in Braille.

• Recognize eye diseases and ways to prevent them. Participants observed the abnormal visual field pictures provided, and matched the pictures to the correct ocular disease name correspondingly based on the cue words.

• Perceive things only through touch and smell.In the darkness, participants tried to recognize objects that were once easily recognizable by sight alone. The process became extremely difficult, and this difficulty makes us understand more about the hardships of life as a blind person.

• Explore digital challenges of them and offer inclusive recommendations. . We know that: Technological progress should never overlook people with disabilities. The benefits of innovation must be made accessible to everyone. Through this activity, we received a lot of feedback. Some students mentioned that for situations where mobile banking passwords are scrambled and screen readers can't be used, the system could be set to allow screen reading when headphones are connected. Some students suggested making public facilities, like buses, more accessible. For example, by connecting mobile phones to the bus tracking system, the phone could provide a voice alert when different buses arrive at the station.

Figure 5: Many people participate and actively contribute

In addition to this, we also produce related videos(Click here to view)so that the outside world can know more about the life of the visually impaired. We produce related lesson plans and cooperate with the teaching team to spread the knowledge of eye protection and correct eye use to more people.

Figure 6: Feedback from mission teams across the country

Supporting Knowledge Exploration

In conjunction with the Prof. Zhang's suggestion of “multi-sensory teaching”, we planned and produced a three-dimensional Braille book, using “pictures” with a real sense of touch to give visually impaired children science books that they can feel. We donated this book to the Chinese Braille Library, in the hope of inspiring more visually impaired children who are curious about the world to explore science.

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Figure 7: The content of our three-dimensional Braille book

In order to gain a deeper understanding of the lives of people with hearing impairments, we visited the Kaiser Hearing and Speech Promotion Center in Beijing on April 26^th to meet our needs. Teacher Xing told us that the hearing-impaired not only face challenges in terms of hearing, but also social cognition and unequal distribution of resources.

Figure 8: Visit to the Kaiser Hearing and Speech Promotion Center

Expand Scientific Resources

Hearing-impaired people are facing lots of stereotypes in society, like “Don't talk to them, they are unable to hear at all”. So on July 21^st, we jointly organized the "Deaf Children Entering University Campus" activity with the Kaiser Hearing and Speech Promotion Center. Hearing impaired children of different ages entered the campus of Beijing Normal University. Under the guidance of iGEMers, the hearing impaired children completed the drawing of coloring books (An illustrated book taking synthetic biology as the theme which is designed by 2024 BNU-China) (Click here to view), while iGEMers also educated them on relevant infectious diseases and demonstrated an equal attitude towards all children. By interacting with those kids, we hope to open a scientific door for them.

Figure 9: Hearing impaired children joyfully joined in our abundant activities

Break the Stereotype

Hearing-impaired people are facing lots of stereotypes in society, like “Don't talk to them, they are unable to hear at all”. We wish to eliminate these misunderstandings. So firstly, We conducted a live broadcast throughout the activity mentioned above.To our surprise, the play count was more than 23000, and we gained over 20000 viewers. We hope the audience can see through the live broadcast that children wearing cochlear implants and other assistive devices are no different from normal children.

Figure 10: Detailed data of the live broadcast

Then in July and August, we collaborated with multiple volunteer teaching teams to help more normal compatriots understand the hearing-impaired population and the challenges they face through volunteer teaching activities.

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Figure 11: Teaching teams are carrying out courses related to hearing impairment

Besides, we also published a video(Click here to view) with the theme of hearing impairment to raise public awareness of them.

Due to the fact that we are almost unable to get in touch with children with autism in our daily life, we first paid a visit to Zhirun Fangtong Rehabilitation Center in Beijing on April 24^th to better know their needs. In the conversation with Director Ma, she told us children with autism need more attention from society and they greatly benefit from interactive activities in the social environment.

Figure 12: Visit to the Zhirun Fangtong Rehabilitation Center

To Create an Interactive Relation

For the interactive activity, we have hosted an event themed 'Close to Nature' with Zhirun Fangtong Rehabilitation Center. On June 29^th, 12 children with autism of varying ages visited Beijing Normal University. Guided by iGEMers, they engaged in activities such as harvesting plants in the botanical garden, creating plant rubbings, and coloring books (Click here to view).

Figure 13: Children with autism are creating plant rubbings and coloring books

At the end of the event, we received a huge amount of warm feedback from kids with autism. “I really enjoyed creating plant rubbings with you. I finally have my own bag to hold art supplies and water bottles.” Moon said. “I usually don't have anyone to play with, but this time there are so many people who can play together.” Yueyue said.

To Establish a Two-way Dialogue

To earn more attention for people with autism, we have produced a bilingual video (Click here to view)to give a brief introduction to people with autism and published it online. People can gain detailed knowledge on how to get along with individuals with autism by watching the video.

Furthermore, the volunteer teaching teams helped us to brought the stories of children “from the stars” to farther places. Just as their feedback says: It is time to embrace children “from the stars” with tolerance and support!

Poor Science Education

At present, China's education for ethnic minorities has made remarkable progress, but there is still the problem of the low level of popularization of science education in some ethnic minority areas. Relevant data shows that some remote ethnic minority areas have scarce educational resources, poor teaching facilities and weaker teachers compared to Han areas, leading to differences in the quality and level of teaching between different areas.

Inadequate Coverage of Chinese character

Due to the fact that people in ethnic minority have their own linguistic and writing systems, the penetration rate of Putonghua in China is only 80.72%. there is still a certain proportion of the population who cannot read Chinese characters and cannot speak mandarin. It is especially important to use ethnic minority written languages to spread scientific and cultural knowledge among more ethnic minority people.

Deficient Integration of Ethnic Cultures and Modern Education

The integration of ethnic cultural heritage and modern science education also deserves attention. Minority cultures are an important part of China's multiculturalism, and it is essential to pass on and promote their cultures as well as enhance the sense of identity of ethnic minorities with their own cultures in the process of modernizing education.

To Spread of Synthetic Biology in Ethnic Languages

In order to make science education more accessible to ethnic minorities, we sowed the seeds of synthetic biology in the languages of many ethnic groups. We have produced several comic booklets themed on synthetic biology in various ethnic languages including Mongolian, Uyghur language, Zhuang language and Tibetan (Click here to view). These comic booklets introduce the concepts and applications of synthetic biology with vivid language and drawings, and explains how synthetic biologists can modify microorganisms (chassis bacteria) to achieve different biological functions by analogizing the way programmers adjust the functions of programs by adding or deleting codes.

Figure 14: The content of our comic booklets

By taking the minority students who are studying in BNU as a link, we take the opportunity of their returning home in summer to popularize the basic concepts of synthetic biology to the minority areas by using the comic booklet as a vehicle to fill the gaps of synthetic biology in the local area.

Two-way Communications

In order for the seeds of synthetic biology to continue to take root, we established contact with minority students who had read the synthetic biology manual and received feedback videos on their understanding of synthetic biology.

In the video, dressed in ethnic costumes and in front of a building with ethnic style features, they promoted extended applications of synthetic biology in both agriculture and medicine in their own minority languages based on the content of the comic booklet. From the video, we can not only see the collision of ethnic culture and modern scientific knowledge, but also feel the friendly communications between ethnic groups.

Data from 2019 shows that the prevalence of moderate visual impairment in China was 3.23% (approximately 45.92 million people), severe visual impairment was 0.33%, and the blindness rate was 0.61%. The issue is particularly prominent in underdeveloped areas and the same results can be found in hearing impairment and autism.

Health Education Series Courses

We decided to carry out a series of health education in these areas to raise children's health awareness, prevent potential decline of sight and hearing, avoid autism and improve their quality of life. Therefore, we designed lively and interesting courses(Click here to view teaching plans). We have collaborated with 8 teaching teams which contain more than 100 volunteers from BNU, USTB, THU, and others. They brought our curriculum design to multiple provinces and cities, including Xingtai City in Hebei Province, Turpan City in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Dali City in Yunnan Province and Anqing City in Anhui Province. They conducted relevant courses and sent us feedback on the courses and children's smiles.

Figure 15: Feedback from teaching teams

Warm Transmission

Given that our course design focuses on special populations, we also invited children underdeveloped areas to share their heartfelt blessings for these groups. Despite their young age, they displayed admirable qualities such as kindness, inclusiveness, and generosity. They expressed genuine care and encouragement for special populations, sending their warmest and most sincere wishes.

Figure 16: Blessings to special populations from kids in undeveloped areas

We then gave their blessings to rehabilitation centers that collaborate with us, building a warm bridge among them.

It is said that infectious diseases are one of the likely events to cause public anxiety. Take Covid-19 as an example, in that period, many tweets posted on social media accounts involved content fraud and spread rumors, causing the public to panic. From network environment governance to individual emotions, uncountable serious consequences were caused due to such an unreal media consensus environment.

A Proposal Document

The real and scientific online public opinion environment should be constructed from the origin, and government is the institute directly responsible for the issue. Therefore, we drafted a proposal document and joined the 2024 National Youth Simulated Political Consultative Conference Proposal Collection Activity.

Figure 17: The content of the Proposal

The theme of the proposal is about proposing that relevant government departments clean up false statements related to infectious diseases uploaded online, and adopt strict review and publishing mechanisms to restrict some media accounts from guiding public opinion. It has passed the initial screening of our school and is expected to truly play a role.

Counterfeit Short Videos

Although our power is not enough to make all rumors disappear, we can strive to create a better online public opinion environment and spread the positive energy of science to the public. Therefore, we released a series of anti-counterfeiting short videos,where the scientific fallacy behind the rumor were elucidated.

(Video2: An anti counterfeit video for HPV)

In our video series, we clarified the false information about HPV(which is shown above), COVlD-19(Click here to view), HIV(Click here to view), etc., and made a direct response to the previous false tweets or videos. We hope that in the future, the public can view the content of tweets dialectically and not be influenced by rhythm.

Infectious diseases are one of the most easily causing public anxiety. Due to lack of understanding, people often experience fear and anxiety when they have suffered from infectious diseases, and at the same time, misunderstandings and discrimination are inevitable when people get along with infected patients.

Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of the causes, precautions, and common diagnostic and treatment methods of various infectious diseases is crucial for both individuals and society.

A Mini Game

We have designed a science popularization game with infectious diseases as the theme. Players can play the role of a doctor in the game and personally experience the entire process of diagnosing and treating patients suffering from infectious diseases. During the game, players can depend on their actual life experience or refer to our guidebook offered in the game at any time to make judgments on the state of an illness, causes, and possible treatment plans for their patients.

By playing our game, players can scientifically and comprehensively understand the pathogenesis, typical diagnosis and treatment methods of each infectious disease (such as COVID-19, HIV, etc.) in an immersive role play, eliminating their prejudice and misunderstanding of infectious diseases, and promoting the formation of a more inclusive society.

The code editing of the game is still on the way, after the completion of the code section, our game is expected to be listed on the APP Store. Below is an introduction video of our game.

Video3: Introduction video of our game Cytokine Storm

The outbreak of an epidemic is a global issue and no country can stay out of it. However, based on different national conditions, different countries hold different positions during the epidemic. Only by deeply understanding the perspectives and attitudes of each country can the world unite and fight against the epidemic together. Actually, an international perspective and inclusive attitude are crucial for everyone.

A Model United Nations Conference

On September 28th, BNU-China and the Model United Nations Association of Beijing Normal University cooperated and launched a Model United Nations Conference on the topic of "Prevention, Preparation, and Response to Global Pandemics". Taking into account both developed and developing countries, this conference venue set up representative seats including the United States, China, South Africa, Germany, India, etc. The main contents of the conference cover core discussions including policy formulation, vaccine production, strengthening cooperation, and coping with challenges in the face of the epidemic.

Figure18: The Model United Nations Conference on the topic of "Prevention, Preparation, and Response to Global Pandemics"

Representatives discussed a series of prevention strategies starting from their national standpoints, such as strengthening disease surveillance and enhancing international cooperation. They also deliberated on the preparations needed, including the distribution of medical supplies and the synchronization of medical information. In successive consultations and motions, representatives explored more possibilities for the future.

Although it is only a simulated conference, the representatives had intense exchanges and promoted the formation of drafts, also allowing all the listeners to feel the problem of pandemics from an international perspective, which requires all countries around the world to work together.