Overview
As revealed by our human practices survey, it caught our attention that there is a common misconception about cancer, not limited to pancreatic cancer, among the public. This finding prompted our team to launch a series of engaging activities and design innovative tools that aimed to promote cancer awareness and education. Our initiatives aimed to bridge the knowledge gap, dispel common myths, and empower individuals with accurate and up-to-date information by presenting complex yet crucial information in an accessible, gamified and engaging way.
Following are some highlights of the educational work our team has accomplished together.
Board Game
PANOPOLY is an educational board game that aims to raise awareness about the lifetime risk of developing cancer and the current offers of treatment options that are effective in treating specific types of cancer. Throughout the gameplay, players gain insights into the effectiveness of various medications for specific cancer types. However, the game also sheds light on the financial burden that often accompanies these treatments, highlighting the pressing need for more affordable and accessible targeted therapies. Ultimately, PANOPOLY aims to empower players with knowledge and empathy, encouraging them to become active participants in the collective effort to improve cancer care. By highlighting the delicate balance between treatment efficacy and affordability, the game seeks to inspire a new generation of informed and compassionate individuals who will drive positive change in the fight against cancer.
Phase 1 – Design brainstorming and prototyping
After realization of the knowledge gap, our team has gone through a series of design thinking process, on which and what kind of tools or product would best help in educating and conveying the educational messages. With multiple rounds of discussion, we have come up with the idea of designing a board game, as it suits various age groups and has a wide range of audience. Soon after confirming the ideal product to be made, our team proceed into designing the actual product and prototyping. During the process, several versions were generated while discussing among the team, considering the rules, board design, and more.
Phase 2 – Trial of prototype
With the prototype of PANOPOLY printed and ready for play, we seized the opportunity to showcase our educational board game at various outreach events, for example, the Synthetic Biology Workshop for secondary school students, the 2024 APAC Mini Jamboree, and the 57th Joint School Science Exhibition. While the players enjoyed the game, we also received some useful feedback and response from them. Throughout the trials, the response to PANOPOLY at these events was overwhelmingly positive. We discovered this game not only brings joy to the players, but also successfully conveys meaningful lessons within them.
Feedback received at three events:
| Date | Event | Feedbacks |
|---|---|---|
| 18/7/2024 | Synthetic Biology Workshop for secondary school students |
Skills of each player should be more specific and simplified. Grids of the board should be enlarged. Materials should be prepared in excess. |
| 21-22/8/2024 | 2024 APAC Mini Jamboree |
Drug purchase price should be reconsidered. Maybe more character can be included. Colour theme of the boardgame can be more colourful, to be more appealing to younger audience. |
| 23-26/8/2024 | 57th Joint School Science Exhibition |
Drugs should be in wider diversity and should have clearer instructions on the cure of cancer. Words should be enlarged on cards. Icons of funds are confusing. The round is too short, the grid number can increase. |
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Phase 3 – Improvements
Incorporating valuable feedback from players and our dedicated team members, we have made significant enhancements to PANOPOLY. To increase the attractiveness of the board game itself, our teammates embarked on a comprehensive redesign process, meticulously refining every aspect of the game. The chess board, has undergone a complete transformation, featuring a visually striking and intuitive layout that immerses players in the world of cancer biology and treatment. The redesign of cards, provide players with enough information about various cancer types, treatment options, and the latest advancements in personalized medicine. These cards serve as a valuable resource, enabling players to deepen their understanding of the complexities and challenges associated with cancer care. As we launch this refined version of PANOPOLY, we are confident that it can be used as an educational tool, reaching a wide audience to enhance public awareness on cancer, aligning with the treatments.
Phase 4 – Product Finalisation
With the refined version of game, we made a new prototype to have further game trials for confirming the game design. We played within the team, also invited classmates and friends to test before proceeding to final product.
The board game name is PANOPOLY. The final product will be brought to Jamboree for promotion of our ideas.
Synthetic Biology Workshop for secondary school students
Our team held a Synthetic Biology Workshop for secondary school students in mid-July, in The Church of Christ in China Kei To Mongkok Church in the Church of Christ in China Ming Kei College.
Our workshop was an exciting opportunity to inspire around 20 middle school students who are passionate about synthetic biology. We delivered short lecture on two important areas related to synthetic biology: DNA and proteins, ensuring that students grasped the foundational concepts. To deepen their understanding, we also introduced topics on building recombinant plasmids and creating artificial genes—concepts that are typically reserved for higher-level biology. What made our workshop particularly special were the hands-on activities we designed to engage students in the learning process. We included fun and educational games like a pipetting challenge, Kahoot game, plasmid-building exercises, and an interactive cancer-themed board game. These activities provided the students an idea of laboratory work and scientific research that made them realize the connection between science and everyday life.
We were thrilled with the outcome of the workshop. Students’ feedback was positive on attaining new knowledge. Their appreciation on the activities involved was also reflected by their enthusiastic and curious responses. We consider this workshop successful in terms of successfully inspiring and educating the next generation of scientists about concepts and importance of synthetic biology in improving human life. As the event organizer, we learned so much about the teamwork, communication, and collaboration. Together, we are proud of creating an environment to make learning fun, interactive, and impactful. We are excited and ready to continue promoting scientific knowledge in future workshops!
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2024 Asia-Pacific Mini Jamboree
The 2024 Asia Pacific Mini Jamboree is a co-hosting event organized by both iGEM teams from HKU, CAR-Ma and us, PanoPOLY in late August in HKU campus. This event provided an incredible opportunity to gather, network and share findings and insight, bringing together some of the brightest minds in the Asia Pacific. It also served as a trial run-through for teams to prepare for the Grand Jamboree with a multitude of events such as a mock judging session, workshops and discussion sessions with industrial members, team competitions and games. We were glad to have teams from different places joining this two-day event, both in-person and online.
On the first day of this co-hosting event, we invited one of our department professors, Dr. Chua Song Lin, to give a talk on how synthetic biology is cooperated and made use in exploring the microbiology field. Dr. Chua’s informative talk greatly inspired the audience on the wide possibility of synthetic biology application. “We have never thought that synthetic biology could have so diverse in application.”, commented by a participated team in the post-activity evaluation. We believe we have reached our purpose of holding the talk in the Mini Jamboree.
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In addition to the educational talk, we also arranged a session where teams gathered and shared their projects. The participants also shared their progress in the human practices, and the difficulties and hurdles they encountered while reaching for the ideal goal. Throughout the discussion, we believe that our participants, as well as our team members have had valuable insights and major take-away from other’s experiences and sharing. Together with the wiki-writing workshop delivered by the advisor of the CAR-Ma team, we learnt how to manage the wiki page on presenting the project better, so as to attract readers’ attention.
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Other than sharing and discussion, we also arranged a lab workshop for high schools and mainland teams, who did not involve agarose gel electrophoresis in their projects. Our purpose was to allow our participants who were from Villages other than Oncology to gain different hands-on experience in trying wet lab experiments that were not in their projects. This was considered to be an additional experience and skills obtaining opportunity for the participants by joining this workshop. The participants had the chance to start the process with setting the gel, loading sample, running the gel, and observing results from the gel photo taken with specialized camera.
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On the second day of the event, we launched the mock judging sessions. The participated teams entered the judging room, with judges who were the former iGEMers from HKU and PolyU Teams, as well as advisors from both CAR-Ma and PanoPOLY, to present their project as if they were in Grand Jamboree in October. By listening to other groups’ presentations and the advisors’ suggestion and comments, we believed that both the participating teams and our team had learnt valuable skills of presentation to improve the delivery of contents to judges. Fortunately, the feedback from the teams aligned with our aim to the outcome which was allowing teams to have a taste of the judging session, and to better prepare for the Grand Jamboree.
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We would also like to take this opportunity to express our heart-felt gratitude for HKU CAR-Ma team, for co-hosting the event and providing the venue.
57th Joint School Science Exhibition
Back in August, our team held a booth in the 57th Joint School Science Exhibition, where we showcased our project and the board game to the public. The Exhibition Preparation Committee is a registered non-profit-making charitable organization in Hong Kong composed of students from more than 150 local secondary schools. This exhibition provided us an opportunity to reach out and be engaged directly with the public, aged from kindergarten kids, to elderly, promoting and educating them about pancreatic cancer and synthetic biology. In this exhibition, not only did we use our board game as a media to introduce the public to various kinds of cancer and their treatments, we also introduced our projects to them via our posters and leaflets, spreading the message that pancreatic cancer may not be an incurable disease.
From this exhibition, we observed that using tools like board games and simple graphics could easily engage children and youngsters in learning complicated science topics. Face-to-face interaction at our booth was also found to be crucial for addressing misconceptions by providing clear, accurate information to the public.
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Educational booth and promotion at campus
Our team held an educational booth and promotion sessions at our college campus as a platform for knowledge introduction and exchange. Unlike the other target audience, which might not have biology or even science background, the booth and promotion are especially for college students, who generally have more knowledge base. In this booth, our teammates introduced our project to schoolmates, educated them about synthetic biology, answered questions they might have about our project, and introduced our board game as an education tool. We also sold our designed jacket for arising awareness of cancer patients by donating the profits to Hong Kong Cancer Fund. With the in-person interaction, we had constructive and enlightening discussion among our team and schoolmates. This valuable experience allowed both parties to learn from each other throughout the conversations. More importantly, it provided us a chance to reach out to students who had no such background, and clear up their misunderstanding about pancreatic cancer, learn more about current treatments and future developments of treatment.
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Moreover, we also had the chance to deliver a promotion about iGEM, synthetic biology, pancreatic cancer, and our project to students majoring in biotechnology. This promotion served as a platform for students to know more about our project and product so as to link up their major discipline with possible applications of synthetic biology.
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Instagram stories & reels
Our team has also reached out to the public through social media platforms, Instagram.
We launched a series of Instagram reels and stories to introduce innovative ways to educate the public about synthetic biology and cancer research. Over 12 weeks, we posted engaging stories with interactive polls and quizzes covering topics like cancer treatment, pancreatic cancer, targeted therapy, and Fc-fusion proteins. Our reels featured animations that explored general cancer knowledge and cutting-edge research. The campaign received overwhelmingly positive feedback and sparking interest in the potential of synthetic biology in cancer treatment.
Through these stories and reels, we once again hope to narrow the knowledge gap public has about cancer, cancer treatments as well as pancreatic cancer related information. Observed from the strong level of engagement and participation in quizzes and significant exposure of the reels, this approach of reaching out through social media brought quite an impact in education, with wide audience getting in touch with informative contents on weekly basis.