Education

Background

Because we are a federation team, most of our members come from different schools. The way each individual heard about and decided to join iGEM varies but is heavily focused on these factors: social media/newspapers, word of mouth, and attending past education events run by Japanese iGEM teams. How 17 teenagers, who were strangers at first, learned about synbio and iGEM to gather and create Grand-Tokyo is truly coincidental and miraculous. This is why we believe active education to spread even the most basic awareness (and more!) synthetic biology is crucial.

Throughout our educational activities, we planned and executed our projects with the following three points in mind. (In reference & advice from 2023 Japan-United)

1. Offer learnings aimed at a wide range, not limited by one’s background such as region, age, accessibility to science, or social position.

2. Keeping a close eye and being aware of participants’ reactions during our events, encouraging a lively interaction of ideas and opinions.

3. Reflect on participants’ feedback and apply them in the next project, continuing to improve activities to create new knowledge and opportunities for participants.

Overview

Then, when we took on the challenge for iGEM we realized that there is an insufficient amount of beginner-level educational materials in Japanese. This posed difficulties for new learners, unfamiliar with the topic like us, to take the first few steps into synbio.

Based on this experience, we aimed to introduce easy-to-understand, inviting content to learn about synthetic biology that learners can enjoy. As a team that came together through platforms on the internet, we knew by heart how powerfully it could spread information to third parties. Thus, we also heavily focused on uploading these contents to various internet media so there is no barrier to accessing them.

Combining these tools with mutually-communicative opportunities, we aimed to serve as a gateway to learn about synthetic biology in Japan.

We also made all the materials used throughout our education available in a downloadable format for use by other iGEM teams and people who want to spread the word about synthetic biology. The PDF documents for each item allow for a reconstruction of the educational activities we have done.

The human-practices activities such as visiting nursing homes made us notice how many adults need to be made aware of the new technology of synthetic biology. We concluded this to be due to the lack of education, leading us to focus more on planning educational activities for middle and high school students.

Overall, our team tried to not only impart knowledge about synthetic biology, but to also encourage our audience to think and formulate their own opinions about synthetic biology.

Preparation

1. Creating an Interactive Deck, a Fundamental Tool to Learn Synthetic Biology

Before beginning our education activities, we looked at some of the past iGEM teams, feeling that reading their picture books or playing with their games was one of the most enjoyable things to do. Therefore, we realized that an easy-to-understand, interactive tool would be necessary to invite new learners with fun. This gave us an impetus to create an interactive deck.

The players are given cards with basic laboratory kits/organisms/experiments used in biology. Their goal is to organize these in order and create a flow to conduct a certain experiment task. (Of course, other ways to play this game are open to imagination!)
Our cards are an interactive experience without strict or competitive rules to encourage engagement and learning rather than winning.

Every time we offered this card game, we received both positive and negative feedback from the players and we improved it multiple times so that it could have more cards, advanced levels, and an improvement in aesthetic parts.

This card’s target users range from elementary to high school students to enjoy. We hope that this will facilitate young enthusiasts’ introduction to synbio as we cover topics more in-depth in the main activities we offered in the following education projects.

(japanese):実験を成功させろ！カードゲーム.pdf
(english): Make the Experiment a Success! Card Game.pdf

Activities for Teenagers

2. Experimental Class 1 For Junior and Senior High School Students

“The reason I joined iGEM was because the experiment classes hosted by Japan-United was unforgettable” -Saki, our education/wet team member

Conducting laboratory experiments at schools is not a common part of study in Japanese middle and sr. high schools. Nevertheless, the best way to learn something is to move your hands. Therefore, in order to provide a practical study of synthetic biology, we organized an experimental class. Conducting this first enabled us to come to close with participants close to our age and close the gaps between our expectation of the public’s understanding of synthetic biology, versus the reality.

The experiment’s theme was “Comparing DNA of Familiar Foods”, in which we attracted the participants’ interest by extracting and observing DNA from broccoli and natto (which includes B. subtilis natto, our project’s research organism). PCR and electrophoresis followed, covering basic experimental behaviors in synthetic biology.

When we asked Saki, one of our members who participated in one of the education classes hosted by last year’s Japanese high school team “Japan-United”, she said that one of the main aspects she liked about it was that the distance between teaching assistants and participants were very close, and that she was able to interact with the members a lot. Therefore, we kept in mind to keep the ratio of participants to teaching assistants as low as possible, which was 1:1 this time. We were able to conduct experiments while answering various questions about iGEM, research, or our project on a one-on-one basis. We interspersed fill-in-blank questions within the handout as well (attached pdf), making sure participants can output the knowledge they’ve learned as the lecture kept on and maintaining a common level of understanding between us. These factors made the class highly interactive.

This event was hosted in collaboration with Leave a Nest Co., Ltd., an established company that supports middle and high school student’s research, who supported us with the know-hows in conducting an effective and efficient experiment lecture, as well as lending their public laboratory for easy access across Tokyo. For this reason, there was no fee to participate in this lecture, and a wide range of students from 8 different schools were able to join in.

In a survey conducted after the event, participants responses included
・I didn’t know what synthetic biology was, but learnt the basic ideas of engineering organisms
・I understood the logics of how DNA extraction, PCR, and electroporation works (EtOH, 4-steps, and electric charges of DNA)
Thus it can be concluded that this event served as a gateway to learning synthetic biology for junior and high school students.

Protocol: (Japanese) 2024/6/2実験教室 プロトコル.docx
Protocol: (Enlish) Experiment Classroom Protocol for June 2, 2024.docx
Slides: (Japanese)
iGEM 実験教室 0602.pdf
Handout: (Japanese)
[iGEM 0602 事前時配布資料.pdf](public/docs/Education/PDF/iGEM 0602 事前時配布資料.pdf)

3. Experimental Class 2 For Junior and Senior High School Students

Looking back on the previous experimental class, we realized that although we provided basic experimental procedures, we left out the most obvious part of research: clarifying and analyzing results through experimentation.
Therefore, we decided to hold the class again, this time with the theme of “PCR and electrophoresis of genes from both genetically modified and non-genetically modified crops” to reveal which is which through different band lengths appear in electrophoresis.

We kept the fundamentals of the experiment classes the same: low teaching assistant-to-participant ratio, high interaction, and double-checking knowledge as we went along.
This time, we also collaborated with ADvance Lab. Ltd., a laboratory company with teenage and undergraduate researchers. Because they were of a closer age to us, we believed that inviting these people could give more insight to high school participants aspiring to do research on what it is like to conduct research at universities. They were able to provide more concrete advice to participants than we alone could have and also helped us with planning and advertising the event.
There was no fee to participate in this lecture as well, which resulted in participants from 9 different schools, in different regions of Tokyo. A few of them were actually participants from the last experiment classes, who said they joined again because it was fun!

Pictures:

Protocol: (Japanese)
8/4プロトコル(当日配布資料)
Protocol: (English)
8/4 Experimental class handouts English ver.
Slides: (Japanese)
iGEM 実験教室 0804.pdf

4. Creative lectures for Middle school students in STEM

In the experiment class, we noticed that there were students of all ages (13-17), and their knowledge of biology varied widely. Therefore, in order to make each person’s learning experience effective, we narrowed down the participant’s target group and tailored our approach to fit each person as much as possible.
Thus, we cooperated with the “Top Gun” program to hold an innovative lecture on synthetic biology. This extensive STEM program is led by Shizuoka University, providing a series of advanced science/math lectures to middle school students in western Shizuoka Prefecture.
Because the highly motivated pupils in this program are of similar age (13-15) who regularly go in-depth into STEM areas, we believed that we could alter our lecture and give a lecture of suitable level for them.

The purpose of this lecture was to equip students, who were interested in doing some kind of research, with the engineering mindset in iGEM and assist them to come up with a realistic research proposal in the field of synthetic biology, hoping that it could possibly be one of their research topics later on.

We first gave a generic lecture on synthetic biology, and how both laboratory work as well as computer simulation are imperative. Then, the students were divided into two groups: “Wet” and “Dry”, according to the areas they wanted to explore in more detail.
We placed the highest importance on student independence and provided professional feedback on the flexible creative ideas they came up with. In Japanese education, the traditional one-way style in which the teacher provides learning content to the students is still dominant. We believe this kind of two-way dialogue education that respects the students’ ideas is a very progressive approach and a valuable pedagogical practice, making this a valuable experience for the participants.

Photos:

Slides (Japanese):
iGEM Grand Tokyo Shizuoka Lecture.pdf
Post-Seminar Survey for Grand Tokyo Seminar on July 23_Responses

5. Lecture and support for local middle and high school students

In our previous projects, including experiment classes and Top Gun program, we realized how so many students, more than we expected, were interested in synthetic biology and starting individual research projects, but were not sure how or where to start.
Therefore, we decided to initiate an education project dedicated to helping students start their research projects and supporting them throughout their journey (2024. July~).

At the junior and senior high school that four of our members belong to, we conducted a series of lectures covering beginner-friendly topics to assist participants to begin research activities.

The three lectures were of the following:

1. Hot research topics in STEM and synthetic biology and STEM/research programs to extend your interest
2. Understanding bioethics; precautions, safety of engineering organisms
3. How to start a research project: Brainstorming research questions, finding a lab, and presenting

Slides: (English)
iGEM Grand Tokyo Hiroo Lecture

We found it important that we have one lecture dedicated to introducing different subfields of science because the standard divisions present at our schools only consist of chemistry, biology, and physics and not interdisciplinary ones.
Although the main topic for each lecture was different, we had a quick summary of the previous lecture at the start and also offered the presentation templates for those who missed the lecture or wanted to review.

Each lecture followed a discussion panel, where students were free to ask for additional support and/or advice for their scientific passions. Though each lecture was designated to be around 30 minutes after school, many inspired students stayed behind to chat in-person with the members, sometimes for another 30 minutes!

We also established a Discord server where we offered a platform where students can directly contact one of us for assistance in starting a research project, how to contact mentors, and/or just discuss their passions and interests in a community of science enthusiasts. A boy participant actually reached out to us asking how to create emails he wanted to send to a professor which he wanted to begin research, which we delightfully helped!
Anyone was welcome to join the discord server, regardless of whether they were able to come to our lectures or not. We are offering continuous support, even to this day.

We received a lot of positive feedback, one from a 15-year-old participant saying:
“I always thought that research was only from high school but I learned that you could start from middle school. Overall, it was really helpful because it was my first time discussing research or anything about extracurriculars with a senpai(senior student in Japanese), and I learned a lot of new things about how to start a new research” which shows that this lecture was successful for our objectives.

6. Science Connect; Joint Education Project by iGEM Japan Community

As we actively continue our education activities, we begin to notice that despite the large influence our individual-focus can have on each student, there is a limit as to how many people we can actually reach out to. In other words, there are so many possibilities with synthetic biology and how to communicate that, however, when each iGEM team is doing individual education projects, it is difficult to show the diversity and the unlimited potential synthetic biology has.

Therefore, we co-hosted a joint education project with the iGEM Japan Community where all of our diverse team projects can be delivered to participants in one event. Not only were we exhibiting at the event, but were also deeply involved in its operation. We had meetings with the other teams once a week, planning and creating necessary materials, contributing to the iGEM circle in Japan through the event.

At the event, we held a booth where we introduced our research project, and we also had participants play the card game we introduced in section 1 to deepen their understanding of synthetic biology. We also had discussions with the participants about their interests in synthetic biology and research in general.
After the event, we had a reflection meeting with the Japanese Community in order to highlight what was successful and how we can improve.

Photos

Activities for Wider Public

7. Discussion with Ashiya City Ministry of Education board members and teachers

Ashiya is a city in Hyogo prefecture, known for its innovative policies, with a special focus on education as well as mutual communication between the citizens and the local government, ensuring transparency.
Throughout our activities, we have noticed that we have been able to reach out to those already interested in synthetic biology. We thought that by contributing to improving the compulsory education offered by local governments, we could spread awareness about synthetic biology as well as the creative mindset of scientific research to every student in the community, regardless of their experiences or interests.
We believe that the values Ashiya city government holds align very closely with those of iGEM as well as our team. We reached out to them and held several online meetings with the Ministry of Education board members as well as teachers. The main points discussed are as follows:

• Promoting active learning and mutual communication in the classroom (learning about science)
• Enhancing students’ interest in various fields by providing opportunities
• Solving the issue of disparity of opportunities in different areas

Later, we created slides about synthetic biology and molecular biology in general that can be used by elementary school classrooms to teach about synthetic biology and shared them with the Ministry of Education. Through this, we aimed to enhance opportunities for all students enrolled in compulsory education to enhance their interests and participate in synthetic biology.

Slides: (japanese)
生物の研究について　iGEM Grand Tokyo.pdf

8. Collaboration on YouTube

We collaborated with Yurufuwa Biology (ゆるふわ生物学), a YouTube channel run by undergraduates who specialize in biology, including medalists of the International Biology Olympiad, that work on various projects to convey the true enjoyment of biology to as many people as possible. They create podcast-style, relaxed (=Yuru in Japanese) videos where they explain advanced biological content in an easy-to-understand (=fuwa in Japanese) way. We wanted to create a video with them, because we believed that their theme of making academics familiar to first-time learners matched our vision to expand synbio paths for more, and more importantly—because one of our members was a huge fan of them! (Thus, this activity became one of their most exciting, memorable moments in iGEM.)

We recorded a 30 minute podcast style video, where we played an educational biology game whilst talking about synthetic biology, iGEM and Grand-Tokyo. During the game, we divided into two teams, “High Schoolers” vs. “Yurufuwa Biology”, and played two different games:

1. Vocabulary Guess
   One team decides on a biology related word, and the other team asks questions to guess them. However, questions must only be answered by “yes” or “no”. The team that guesses the word faster than the other team wins the round.
   Out of the 3 rounds played, some of the words played included “Thermal Cycler”, “Drosophilidae”, or “Cartagena law”.

2. Code Name
   A series of cards with a wide range of vocabulary are laid out on deck, and the objective is to collect all of your team’s card. However, which cards are classified as your team’s are only visible to one member of your team, who can give out a one-word clue.
   From a different perspective, we tried describing and guessing synbio words with various adjectives, which became a learning experience for both participants and viewers.

Through this activity, we were able to turn academic content into a form of entertainment and provided an opportunity for the audience to become familiar with synthetic biology and biotechnology.
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9. A Peek in Synthetic Biology; Publishing easy-read Articles

We have been promoting synthetic biology literacy in Japan by publishing various articles on synthetic biology on the Internet.
In Japan, there is very little literature covering the basics of synthetic biology, and the awareness of synthetic biology is very low to begin with, as well as the environment for studying it. Therefore, we have compiled information on synthetic biology from the basics to applications and made it openly accessible on the Internet so that it can be introduced to people of the same generation who are even slightly interested in biology.
Using “note,” a Japanese social networking blog site with more than 51 million active users, we wrote 27 articles that offer a little peek into synthetic biology, iGEM, and who we are and what we do. Ultimately, all articles combined reached over an incredible total of 10,000 views.
The article summarized the following topics.We explained what makes synthetic biology different from other disciplines that have been studied, and provided a simple explanation of DNA engineering, the basis of synthetic biology. We also introduced past programs related to our project material, nattokinase. We also discussed some papers on synthetic biology, and tried to go into some more advanced topics.
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Weekly iGEM: (english)
Weekly iGEM wiki.pdf

10. To Future Biologists; Conveying Through Writing Articles

Since the purpose of the article on Note was to promote synthetic biology to people who have prior knowledge of biology, the article that was posted on Okke was designed to introduce synthetic biology to people who do not have much knowledge of biology (mainly middle and high school students), as well as to introduce the potential of our project’s subject, Natto, through the field of synthetic biology. The article also mentioned the potential of natto (fermented soybeans), the subject of our project, in the field of synthetic biology.
We also explained the health effects of natto from a scientific perspective and suggested effective combinations and appropriate ways to consume natto.
In addition, we provided information tailored to a wide range of target audiences, including the elderly and young children.
Education Article

11. Social Media Platforms; Reaching the World

As face-to-face events and educational meetings limit the attendee’s variety and audience range, we attempted to reach a wider target audience by utilizing social media. Creating an account for the 3 main social media used frequently, Instagram, Facebook, and X (Twitter) we also made a variety of audiences to reach, because these 3 different social media have a variety of generations and differences in main users. For instance, we made the Facebook page mainly for the older audience compared to Instagram and X. Analytics show that the main user range of Facebook is people aged from 24 to 35 or older, while Instagram users are mainly from the 18-24 age group, and X users range from 18-34 years old. As these main age ranges vary and each country or area has its own ‘main social media’, we decided to implement all three platforms for our educational purposes. To simplify, our Instagram page was for people to discover the existence of Synthetic Biology and create an opportunity for them to indulge and take in information from our simple and attention-catching posts. On the other hand, our X account is for more frequent progress reports and casualties, where we also integrated interaction and communication with the audience more often to ignite mutual learning.

In total, we have uploaded Our main target for social media platforms included the following main points;

1. Delete the boundaries and limitations set up by face-to-face events and expand our target audience to those out of Japan, or those who do not speak Japanese and create a diverse information platform in terms of language.

2. Utilize it as a measure to communicate and interact with other iGEM teams and plan a way to exchange ideas and discuss synthetic biology to create mutual learning.

3. Create a platform where our activities are transparent and visible to the audience, for those who support us as well as create a chance for the younger generations that use social media to have an understanding of our project and synthetic biology.

Instagram Link (iGEM Grand Tokyo)
X Link (iGEM Grand Tokyo)
Facebook Link (iGEM Grand Tokyo)

Examples of posts
(Japanese)iGEM Grand Tokyo instagram post.PNG
(Enlish)iGEM Grand Tokyo instagram post.PNG

12. Discussion of Project on Yocto, an Online Platform to Intersect and Exchange Ideas

As our education activities developed, so did our project plan. Therefore, we wanted to share our ideas of using a familiar bacteria for research, and see how much it would attract the general public’s attention.

Therefore, we chose to participate in Yocto, an online meeting event where students (most likely high school researchers and) from various disciplines participate and showcase their research to each other. Because it was a casual gathering mainly advertised on twitter, many research-aspired teenagers were able to exchange views anonymously with less pressure.

One of our members introduced the basic aspects of iGEM, synbio, and what we high schoolers are doing as a team project. More than 50 people joined, and not only did this event allow us to reach a wide range of disciplines and generations of people in synthetic biology, but it was also mind-opening for us as we had questions, answers, lively discussions involving how synbio research could create a combination with other fields.

Activities to Spread Awareness

13. Hakone Neighbor’s Camp; Sharing Synthetic Biology with our ‘Neighbors’

We gave a presentation about our research project at the “Hakone Neighbor’s Camp” held in Hakone, where more than 50 junior high school students, high school students, university students, and adults dropped-in to listen.

Unlike the experimental classes for students mentioned previously, this presentation allowed us to disseminate our research to a wide range of ages, including adults, and we received feedback and impressions from those who listened to our presentation. Some of them were working adults who were running businesses, so we were able to receive feedback and opinions about entrepreneurship.
Since many of them did not know about synthetic biology, this was an opportunity to spread the word about the discipline itself.

Photos

Slides (japanese)
Eggfoward様用中間報告.pdf

14. MIZUNOTE Forum; A Chance to Inform

MIZUNOTE Forum was one of our first opportunities to present our ideas and project in front of a group of audience, especially entrepreneurs and adults who are willing to support and fund our ideas. We had the opportunity to stand in front of an audience of around 50 people and give a brief 10-minute presentation on the essential parts of our project, and how we aim to approach the worldwide problem we chose. Since this event focused on SDGs and sustainability for future generations, we dedicated and tailored our project accordingly to bring in elements that could help to sustain the world and as a part of the future generation, become the change that is needed for a better world. When presenting our idea, we poured our passion into our ideas, convincing the audience of the seriousness of the issues we are facing with health issues and our brand-new idea that we plan to build upon.
We are proud to say that we were one of the few that were prized as the U20 “未来創造賞”, or the “future creation prize”, due to our innovative idea that could support future generations. It can be noted that our strength of being an all-high-schooler team is of use in terms of being representatives of future generations.

Contributions to iGEM Community

In our activities, we have tried to keep an active relationship with other teams in the iGEM Community.
Since March, Japan-Alliance and Grand-Tokyo has been co-hosting a wiki-reading-circle every Thursday within the iGEM Japan Community, where various Japanese iGEMers from wide ranges of teams took turns to give presentations on the projects of teams that had achieved excellent results in iGEM in the past. This provided valuable learning opportunities for the other teams, as well as the presenter.
The initiative continued until August, and Grand-Tokyo members presented 4 times out of the 13 times it was hosted.
These are some of the slides used:

輪読会資料①.pdf

2024613輪読会.pdf

Software.pdf

We also participated in the iGEM Japan Meetup that took place in March. All Japanese iGEM teams joined, with most of them presenting their project plan (including us!). We discussed projects,providing feedback to each other, which made it a valuable opportunity to get close with fellow local iGEMers.