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With the rapid development of synthetic biology, many novel technologies are being produced all the time. As researchers, we have a vocation to disseminate this knowledge, and it is especially important for ordinary people to understand our scientific and technological progress in an easy-to-understand way. Regardless of youth or age, gender or race, people should not live in a cocoon of information, everyone has the right to access knowledge is a ladder of social progress, we want to bring more profound knowledge of synthetic biology related to bacterial detection to the people of China and the world, so that more people can understand and avoid foodborne bacterial infections.
When analyzing how to complete educational activities, we consider a variety of factors, such as how to provide the most understandable educational method to the target age group, how to make people more willing to understand our knowledge, and how to make the knowledge we interpret quickly spread in society. First, we use different educational methods for different age groups: for example, for young children, we use stories, short films, and concise knowledge to tell them about our research in synthetic biology. Second, for young high school students, we have adopted the method of making games to cater to the needs of young people, which greatly promotes the willingness of young people to learn. Finally, for adults with more social experience and common sense, we have adopted more professional terminology and more specific expressions to produce relevant surveys and popular science. Finally, we took advantage of the ease of access to information on the Internet to create a blog site, which introduced our experimental process and some of the principles and received some attention. Through these various ways, education becomes more practical and interesting, and I think this is the purpose and original intention of our IGEM project, to let more people know about synthetic biology and inspire us to create more knowledge for education.
This activity took place at the Community Service Center in Tianqiao Street, Shanghai, China, and was aimed primarily at children aged 2-10. This age group was chosen because children often have weaker immune systems and are more prone to foodborne diseases due to careless eating habits.
The coloring activities and the creation of bacteria from clay games serve not only as entertainment but also as subtle educational tools that promote development through leisure. Firstly, they introduce young children to basic knowledge about bacteria, including their shape, structure, and function, thereby stimulating an interest in science. Secondly, these activities foster creativity and imagination, allowing children to express and understand the characteristics of bacteria in a personalized way—an exercise valuable for their artistic and expressive skills. Additionally, coloring and manipulating clay enhance hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills, improving children's manual dexterity and finger flexibility. Most importantly, these games seamlessly integrate learning with enjoyment, allowing children to absorb new knowledge and information through play. As a result, the design of such educational games not only contributes to the child's overall development but also facilitates profound learning experiences in an enjoyable context.
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During the activities, the children showed great enthusiasm and participation. They actively answered questions during the biology lesson and exhibited great curiosity. When team members asked questions, all of them eagerly raised their hands to respond. Coloring was one of the most popular parts of the event, with children displaying their creativity and artistic talent while having fun. The storytelling sessions also captured the children's attention with vivid language. Making clay models allowed the children to demonstrate their creativity and practical skills.
Roll Screen Chinese Version
Roll Screen English Version
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Through this educational activity, we have come to understand that science popularization content for different age groups should be customized. For example, for this group of kindergarten children, we will introduce more about what bacteria are and what harm foodborne bacterial infections can cause us. Enable students to understand the content of science popularization through simple, visual, drawing, and gaming forms.
The children gave feedback to us that this activity was very interesting. They not only learned about the dangers of bacteria and foodborne bacteria, but also learned about good living habits to avoid being infected with foodborne bacteria in their future lives, which could cause harm to their bodies. The children also hope that we can lead them in activities and games in the future to learn more about synthetic biology.
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Our team also upload various posts in Little Red Book which is one of mainstream social media in China. By utilizing Little Red Book, we enable people from diverse countries and backgrounds to quickly and easily understand basic biological knowledge, preventive measures for bacteria, and the introduction of our products and purposes in the IGEM competition, particularly in promoting knowledge about foodborne bacteria.
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Due to the abstract complexity of biological knowledge, we simplified complex and difficult concepts into straightforward and understandable bilingual Chinese-English content. To further aid understanding, we provided small illustrations next to the corresponding knowledge points and created various exquisite posters. These materials help both domestic and international audiences better learn about bacteria. Additionally, we highlighted the harm of foodborne bacterial infections through real-world examples, such as news stories, to make people aware that foodborne bacteria are prevalent and that preventive actions are necessary. Lastly, we published English comics on Little Red Book, using an educational and entertaining approach to subtly impart knowledge about bacteria to the public.
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In just a few days, our Little Red Book account has garnered nearly 500 views, attracting the attention of individuals who are passionate about biology and interested in our work. The likes and comments on our posts demonstrate that this educational activity has resonated with the public, raising awareness about foodborne bacterial infections. This initiative not only encourages society to consider the prevention and treatment of such diseases but also highlights the importance of our product, Aunano Guardian, in addressing these critical health challenges. By engaging the community through this platform, we are fostering a collective consciousness around food safety and the innovative solutions that can protect public health.
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Blogging, as one of the most traditional forms of social media, remains a powerful tool for reaching a wide audience, so we decided to launch our own blog. In it, we introduced common foodborne bacteria and shared practical tips for preventing them. Our efforts quickly gained traction, with over four hundred views in less than a week.
The impact of our blog was further validated when an experienced French web engineer reached out to us via email. He praised the blog for its valuable biological insights and suggested using CSS to enhance the website's visual appeal. With his guidance, we made improvements that significantly increased our readership, marking a pivotal moment in our outreach efforts.
This experience taught us the importance of combining scientific content with effective presentation, underscoring the potential of educational blogs to influence and educate a broad audience. Moving forward, we are committed to continuing the development of our blog, ensuring it remains an impactful resource for spreading essential knowledge about foodborne bacteria and public health.
game figure 1 & 2
In addition to traditional educational methods (sitting and listening), we also utilize innovative tools to raise children's awareness of foodborne bacterial infections. Since young children are particularly susceptible to bacterial infections, we aimed to understand their knowledge of bacteria and demonstrate the harm bacteria can cause. To achieve this, we developed a game designed to make bacterial concepts easy for children to comprehend.
In the game, not all images depicted bacteria; some were viruses, included intentionally to test if children could identify the mistake. None of them did, indicating a lack of biological knowledge. Based on this result, we plan to conduct more educational activities to spread biological knowledge. However, as we are not professional game developers, the game had its flaws. For instance, one boy mentioned that his limited understanding of biology made it difficult for him to grasp the game. To address this, we plan to add biological stories to make the knowledge more accessible for children.
In conclusion, although the game was not perfect, it highlighted the potential advantages of using game as an innovative educational tool, especially for young children. We further confirm that games encourage active participation, requiring children to think, make decisions, and apply what they have learned in real-time. This hands-on approach can enhance understanding of some sophisticated concepts. In future, our team is committed to developing more games aimed at early years education.
(Figure 12: The boy is playing the game)
(Figure 13: Games)
We use the form of comics in an easy-to-understand way to teach children and people who are interested in comics. So that they can also learn knowledge when entertaining. The original intention of using this method is because in the previous offline bacteria popularization activities for children, we found that most children only know that bacteria are harmful, but they do not know each bacteria has its specific harm. So, we think it is necessary to make a series of popular science activities. Additionally, we asked a lot of people for their opinions. Compared with traditional textbooks, comics will appeal to them even more. Therefore, we started to draw comics to give children a deeper understanding about bacteria.
The cartoon we have drawn right now is about a little boy who is infected with Helicobacter pylori, and then he feels very sick, and finally relies on antibiotics to defeat the bacterium. Here I introduced what H. pylori is, why this bacterium is infected, and how to treat the disease caused by this bacterium. In act 4, we drew four antibiotics, which represent a therapy against H. pylori- -a quadruple therapy. A Common quadruple therapy contains these four components: 2 antibiotics + 1 proton pump inhibitor + 1 bismuth agent.
After finishing creating it, we showed it to lots of people and received a lot of feedback. Basically, this kind of form was accepted by many people. But there are still many things we need to improve. First, someone suggested that we can add an introduction of some methods for prevention of H. pylori. And other audiences said that we can draw a comic of the same story, but the specific introduction of quadruple therapy and some other professional knowledge, to expand the audience of this comic, so that the popularization of knowledge involves more people, and become more meaningful.
To gain more useful information, we arranged a survey poll, for investigating people’s awareness of foodborne bacterial infection and their preferential characteristics of detection methods. We prepared two questions, stayed outside the canteen due to the huge traffic, and asked every passerby, to stick 2 pasters for these questions. The participants are all employees who work in ATLATL exploration center. They are relatively match our targeted customer groups, which aged 30-50, with a salary over 1,5000. The first question is “do you know about foodborne bacterial infections?”, they can whether stick the paster on the side of “barely understand” or the side of “completely understand”. Over 50% of participants chose the side of “barely understand”, which represents foodborne bacteria is still lacking publicity. The second question is “what are the characteristics of your desired detection method?”. There are 4 features can be chosen, which are “easy to operate”, “fast”, “the results are simply displayed and easy to understand”, plus “high accuracy”. Participants can choose one quadrant that include 2 characteristics that they think are most crucial. The largest number of people chose “easy to operate” and “high accuracy”. While almost the same number of people chose “easy to operate” and “fast”. Resultantly, “easy to operate” seems to be the most important factor of individual customers, and they hope the product could be either fast or high accuracy. This provided us with a direction to prioritize which aspect to improve.
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The reason we used this form of survey is that we found survey poll is very intuitive, convenient, and time-saving way for participants, and more people are willing to participate. As a result, we will improve our product depends on the feedback we got, to furtherly enhance our design, and satisfying customers’ demand perfectly.
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In summary, conducting this survey poll serves a dual purpose: it not only provides valuable insights to refine our product based on public feedback but also acts as a powerful form of promotion. The very act of engaging the public through the survey raises awareness of our product, making it more visible to our target audience. This approach not only enhances our product’s development but also strategically positions it in the minds of potential users.
To better understand people's knowledge of bacteria, we held an educational activity at the ATLATL Innovation Research and Development Center. We invited diverse researchers from the company who study biology to draw bacterial images, and their results were ultimately displayed together. This approach not only increased the researchers' interest but also facilitated staff participation without significantly disrupting their work schedules.
Based on the feedback, we found that some workers did not know the structure of bacteria, and some mistakenly drew bacterial images as viruses. This indicates that people, including biology researchers, do not have a particularly clear understanding of bacteria. To address this, we invited other scientific researchers and explained the basic knowledge about bacteria in detail. We then asked them to draw a structural diagram of bacteria again. The bacterial structures drawn by researchers after our explanation were noticeably more accurate and detailed. Consequently, we strengthen public awareness and education about bacteria.
(Figure 18: Sticky Notes Paintings)
(Figure 19: after the explanation, more accurate diagram of bacteria)
Therefore, by inviting biology researchers to draw bacterial images, the event revealed significant gaps in knowledge, as some participants confused bacteria with viruses. This highlighted the need for better education, even among scientific professionals. After providing detailed explanations of bacterial structures, participants produced more accurate drawings, demonstrating the effectiveness of targeted education. The activity emphasized the importance of strengthening public awareness and education on bacteria to improve understanding and promote methods for preventing bacterial infections.
In the experiment, we tried to design different educational methods for different age groups, and one of the projects for infants and toddlers was to use storytelling to bring them the most understandable knowledge. Explain to them the horrors of foodborne bacterial infections in a straightforward and straightforward way. The protagonist of the story, Little Sophia, lacks knowledge and has an unscientific diet plan and hygiene habits, which leads to a foodborne bacterial infection with E. coli, which has serious consequences for him. At the same time, we analyze the wrong behavior of the little Sophia in the story and explain the principles of synthetic biology in detail. Children aged 5-10 years old actively participated in the activities to stimulate their interest in synthetic biology and their basic understanding of biology. At the same time, we also uploaded an online version of the story, which in turn accelerated the dissemination of knowledge.
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There are also shortcomings in our design, some viewers are confused about the specific illness of little Sophia after listening to the story, although most of the questioners are younger students, but this is also an important part of our experimental feedback, so when making the online version, we have made several behaviors that cause little Sophia more clearly, and at the same time used more detailed descriptions to explain the symptoms and chronological order of little Sophia, so that the audience can better understand the main idea we want to express.
Through these eight diverse educational activities, our team consistently upholds the values of the iGEM competition, dedicating our efforts to involve more people in the field of synthetic biology and raising awareness about foodborne bacterial infections. Our educational activities foster mutual learning, allowing us to receive audience feedback, continuously reflect on our practices, and develop appropriate learning approaches for different age groups. Consequently, we aim to strengthen public awareness and education about bacteria while teaching effective methods to prevent bacterial infections.