Team:CSMU Taiwan/Education
Education
This page specifically talks about the Education and Public Engagement part of our educational works. For more information, see Communicationpage.
YouTube Channel
Public Engagement
To promote the public knowledge of iGEM and our project, our team released a series of 2-to-3-minute-long introduction videos on a weekly basis, long enough for information-spreading, but also short enough to stop people from directly leaving the web page. In these videos, we firstly introduced features of iGEM and the principles of synthetic biology. Also, we introduced the key points of our project: UTUC, the application of fishhook RCA, and our dry-lab model, respectively.
To cater to different groups, our team used different strategies to appeal to a myriad of audiences.
To attract young adults (mainly Junior and Senior High School students), we have adopted the method of using animations to make SynBio content less intimidating to individuals that are not necessarily equipped with the relevant expertise yet. We used a variety of animation softwares like Opentoonz, Powerpoint, and Premiere. With animation, we hoped to avoid boring young adults watching our content and spark enough interest in our viewers to take the initiative to start a conversation. For example, in our very first video "Introducing the iGEM Competition", we showed our audiences different aspects of iGEM work, ranging from standard molecular biology techniques to the annual Jamboree.
For individuals that are attending college, we have curated parts of our content to them as well. As a group of audience that perhaps have decided on their field of interest, we do believe that individuals that reach our videos already have a certain level of knowledge in the field of science. Therefore, we have also put out more detailed content on specifically our project and mechanisms used. However, we have also taken note of the extent of depth such that we not only achieve the desired outcome of educating our audience in a one-way manner but also maintain the difficulty into just enough to spark interest and inspire them to find out more themselves with their expertise in the field. For example, in our fourth video "Introducing FP-RCA", we talked about fishhook probes as well as immobilization.
We also utilized YouTube's functions to its extent. YouTube provides a ‘’hashtag’’ system, which makes people easily find videos with similar contents. People can even search the keywords and end up seeing our videos. Our common hashtags that we inserted were "#2021 #iGEM #CSMU #Taiwan #SyntheticBiology #Education", and "#utuc" was also used in some videos. All the five videos in our channel reach the aspects of hashtags inserted in their respective descriptions. English captions were also added to make our content clearer for our viewers.
Last but not least, we had simple interactions with our audiences via the comment section under every video. We hope that through our simple animated videos, our target audiences are able to gain more knowledge and inspiration.
Fig.1 Our first video
Fig.2 Encouraging and engaging comments from the public which are below our video
Social Media Accounts
Public Engagement
In addition to the scientific parts of our team, we also shared information such as "team member introduction", "iGEMers' daily life", "virtual meetup experiences" as well as the "promotion of our UTUC Workshop in CSMU" through our posts and stories. We shared our virtual meetup experiences so as to boost people's interest in this competition and also SynBio itself.
In order to let the public know more about us and iGEM, all the information mentioned above was included by us in both English and Chinese captions.
With these two platforms, we have managed to bring the public closer to us. People not only comment below our posts but also reply to our stories. We believe that with our efforts made, such as knowledge on synthetic biology through simple infographics on Facebook and Instagram, a broader understanding of the field of synthetic biology will be achieved.
Fig.3 A general look at our social media account
Experience sharing with Nantou Shiuhkuang Senior High School
Public Engagement
On top of sharing the scientific parts of our topic, we presented a thorough guide of the iGEM competition and also conducted a quick survey regarding iGEM. In our survey, the questions listed down in order were:
- Does the presentation content appeal to you? (Fig.4)
- How useful is the presentation in your opinion? (Fig.5)
- After the presentation, do you have a better understanding of what iGEM is? (Fig.6)
- After the presentation, do you have better understanding of synthetic biology? (Fig.7)
- After listening to the presentation, would you want your school to establish an iGEM team? Or would you want to participate in iGEM? (Fig.8)
- What was the most impressive part in our presentation? Any feedback is appreciated!
Most questions were rated on a scale of 1 to 5. From the results of the survey, which is seen down below, it is clear that though many are still unsure whether they would want to join iGEM, we successfully sparked high school students’ interest in iGEM and Synthetic Biology.
Fig.4
Fig.5
Fig.6
Fig.7
Fig.8
Fig.9 Explaining what iGEM is
Fig.10 Explaining to high school students about the origin of iGEM
Fig.11 Explaining to high school students about the diverse tracks in the iGEM competition
Fig.12 Sharing with high school students the daily work of iGEMers
UTUC and Health Education Workshop in CSMU
Public Engagement
On top of online sharings and social media content, we have also taken the initiative to hold a UTUC and Synbio workshop in our own school, Chung Shan Medical University. We chose to conduct public engagement with undergraduates in our university in this form due to their scientific knowledge and expertise. Students in medical schools are generally apt at basic scientific and medical knowledge, and therefore we believed that workshops in this form can inform them greatly in this field. We presented specific medical knowledge on UTUC, as well as shared information regarding synthetic biology. The audience not only visibly took great interest in our sharing by jotting down notes during the sharing, but actively asked questions and participated in the session. Additionally, we gave the audience a questionnaire before and after the workshop, and the comparison evidently shows the effectiveness in the engagement of audiences. For more information, see Integrated Human Practices page.
Fig.13 A photo of our leader giving his presentation
Fig.14 Our leader explaining how our selections of biomarkers help our project and moreover, the society
