Overview

Educating and spreading awareness about leptospira can allow the public to take more preventive measures to slow the spread of this disease. Education also focuses on informing about the existence of the iGEM competition.

Wet Lab training sessions (June):

Our team hosted a three week wet lab training workshop for all wet lab members regarding common iGEM protocols, taught by our team lab technician, Shirisa. This includes learning to use the DNA distribution kit plates, restriction digestion, ligation, transformation, lab safety and supplies. This event aims to allow members to familiarize with handling lab work, minimizing the need to redo experiments due to contamination or errors, thus speeding up the lab work process.

Hosting a game booth at school (June):

In addition to conducting local interviews, our team also decided to set up a game booth at our school. With the aim of promoting iGEM and raising awareness of the dangers of leptospira in mind, we gave a compressed class on the iGEM competition and waterborne diseases (mainly revolved around Leptospirosis), and followed it up with a short quiz. To add an interactive element and better engage our juniors, we incorporated a simple pyramid smash game into our lesson.

Interviewing and presenting during our school’s annual swimming gala (July):

Knowing that leptospira is a waterborne disease and may enter our bodies through contaminated, unchlorinated waters when swimming with open wounds, our team grasped this chance during our school’s annual swimming gala, where students of all grades engage in a swimming competition in a public pool, to raise awareness about this disease. Our members stuck posters about the symptoms and risk factors of infection for leptospira, and basic information about iGEM around the spectator stands. We even interviewed our fellow swimmers about their knowledge on leptospira, their usual preventive measures, and presented to teachers and even janitors about our project. This event not only helped us spread awareness about this disease, but also allowed us to get a better grasp at how well this disease is known among students around the age group of 12-18.

Hosting a game booth at our school’s New Student Orientation Camp (Late August):

Our school holds a 3-day orientation day camp annually for new secondary 1 students entering our school, where they learn more about the school and its societies. Aiming to recruit potential members for next years’ iGEM team and spreading awareness about both our project and leptospira, we held interactive games for the new students to experience simple wet lab work, such as pipetting coloured dyes and spreading water on a petri dish. We also held a short presentation on our project and decorated our booth with cute cartoon characters of bacteria. This event allowed us to spike the new students’ interest in science, as well as to shed light about this disease among younger age groups (10-12 years old).

Presenting our project at our school’s Extracurricular Activities Promotion Assembly (September):

Our team leaders presented a short speech about our team, a brief of our project and our daily work on stage during our school’s Extracurricular Activities Promotion Assembly, where different societies and clubs try to persuade students to join them. This event allowed us to spread awareness on our iGEM team, letting our fellow students know that iGEM is more than just researching, but gaining unforgettable experiences and meeting new people and communities. This can hopefully help us recruit new talents for our iGEM team next year, injecting new innovative ideas which can help improve both our research skills and team morale.

Social media:

In addition to interviewing locals, creating workshops, and setting up game stalls, our team also uses social media as one of its main channels of communication and spreading awareness. We determined that the topics would include information pertaining to synthetic biology, the iGEM competition, what leptospirosis is, its gravity, and importance. Through informative instagram posts and trendy reels, we hoped to capture the attention of the public and shed light on the important topic that is leptospirosis. Additionally, we wish to harness the power of social media and create a positive impact on our community.

Collaboration with iGEMS - Taiwan (October):

Our team collaborated with the iGEMS - Taiwan iGEM team to create an audiobook on their project about mosquitoes, where we did a Cantonese voiceover, acting as different characters. This event not only allowed us to meet more people with the same goals and learn from other teams, but also provided us an opportunity for cultural exchange.
This wonderful opportunity stemmed from the previous iGEM competition, where our team became acquainted with GEMS members, and kept in contact. We were ecstatic when GEMS reached out to us, hoping to broaden their audience, and gladly accepted. We’re very grateful for the chance to collaborate with other teams and gain valuable knowledge on their projects.

Symposium

In order to gain public speaking experience, make relationships with other teams and obtain some useful advice and insights for our project, our team attended two symposiums where we listened to other teams’ presentations and showcased our project to mock judges and professors. These symposiums were very helpful and crucial for our preparation for the Jamboree.

HKU Symposium (August):

Our team attended the HKU Symposium, which gave us a lot to take away and helped us take significant steps in our project. We initially aimed at gaining inspiration and advice on ways of implementation as we were debating between viral factors, exosomes, and nanoparticles. During the symposium, we were able to forge close and useful relationships with the CUHK SBS iGEM team and the Hong Kong United iGEM team: the Hong Kong United iGEM team then invited us to attend a symposium they hosted, and we were able to schedule an online meeting with the CUHK SBS iGEM team where we learnt that exosomes would be the most suitable implementation for our project, meeting our initial goal.

Hong Kong - United Symposium (August):

After a success in our first symposium, we attended a second symposium that we were invited to by the Hong Kong United iGEM Team. During this symposium, we refined our presentation and included a description of our IHP work as well, as opposed to just the lab parts. We were inspired by the education and IHP work of other teams that presented and learnt a lot in the aspect of PowerPoint making. We also strengthened our bond between our team and the Hong Kong United iGEM team, where their advisor shared her valuable experiences with education work to us, giving us ideas regarding crafting board games, storybooks and animations for our next competition.