Brief description

During the interviewing process ,we figured out that most people don’t have the basic knowledge over both synthetic biology and microplastic pollution,and some of them may confuse with plastic pollution and microplastic pollution.So it is of great importance to share our knowledge and project over those who are curious in these kinds of fields.

Materials preparing

According to our own experience, without paper materials like textbook, it is hard to remember the knowledge after we first learned that. So it is essential for us to prepare a small handbook before putting education into effect. Also, given that the targets of our education action include a wide range of people with different ages, the contents of our textbook should also be concise and easy to understand. Thus, we designed a small handbook whose main content includes:

What is plastic and what is microplastic?
The problem caused by microplastic...
Existing methods on dealing with the problems...
How could synthetic biology and our project help in solving the problem?

Besides, there are also pages explaining the basic concept such as depolymerization and polymerization, plasmid and how it transfer into E. coli’s body.

Here are the full vision of our handbook.

We hope this handbook will help people pay attention to the issue of microplastic pollution and Establish a scientific understanding of synthetic biology and their application.

Education over primary school students and junior high school students

In our science outreach activities, we first focused on elementary school students with a presentation of our handbooks. To ensure the content was easily understandable, we created a user-friendly handbook that covered basic scientific concepts and principles. During the event, we engaged the students through lively discussions and interactive activities, encouraging their curiosity and passion for science. The presentation showcased the fun aspects of science, such as we introduced how the visible plastic break into small pieces.

Experiment Refinement — Primary school students having lecture over our handbook and WIKI

Improved Microplastic Samples — Primary school students having lecture over our handbook and WIKI

Following this, we targeted junior high school students with a more in-depth science presentation. Building on the handbook discussion, we introduced specific experimental procedures, such as how to use a microscope for observations of C. elegans. Given their existing background in biology, we were able to delve deeper into the experimental steps and scientific principles. This interactive dialogue not only enriched their knowledge but also fostered their hands-on skills and scientific thinking, motivating them to continue exploring the wonders of science in the future.

Communications

Communications with other teams

When we went to EVRY University's summer camp in France, we had profound communications with HUST-China and the IGEM-evry team. As a startup team, this is our second year participating in the IGEM competition. We still have many questions to consult with these two experienced teams. At the meeting, each of our teams elaborated on their project designs and were surprised to find that our project were all related to PET microplastics, but our ideas and village were different. IGEM-evry's classmates told us that microplastics have been a hot topic for many IGEM teams in recent years, and we can refer to the teams that did well in microplastic processing last year and the year before.

Taking part in HBIO DAY of Hubei province.

Synthetic biology opening day of Hubei province is a meeting where IGEM teams from Hubei could gather together and share their experience of participating the competition. During the meeting ,we learned knowledge over how to set up team and have a good design.