Team:USTC-Software/Communication
Communication
Overview
While the names of machine learning and synthetic biology are well known to the general public, the fact is that they may not be aware of the more detailed mechanisms involved - including our iGEM competition. We believe it is important and urgent to spread this important knowledge to public. The importance of educating students as potential participants in iGEM competition and as possible future synthetic biologists should not be underestimated. Thus, we held three science lectures for students with different ages.
Hefei Science and Technology Museum
The Science and Technology Museum is the best place to popularize science knowledge to the public. We contacted with the staff at the beginning and successfully held our science lecture. Our event was also announced on the museum's WeChat account(similar to twitter or Instagram) and more than 300 people had known our event before it started. In order to make our event more interesting and easier to understand, we made a brochure and carefully selected lively and in-depth videos about synthetic biology and machine learning. At the same time, we prepared a few simple questions based on the content of the video, and those children who answered actively would receive a small gift from us.
Although it was rainy that day, people's enthusiasm for seeking knowledge was not dampened. People were fascinated by the brochure and videos we prepared and gathered around us to listen to the science lectures prepared by our team members. The children not only actively answered our questions, but also became more interested in this topic.
In addition, what surprised us more was that we met a lady whose work is about E. coli. After listening to our presentation, she inquired in details about the current application of machine learning in synthetic biology. She said it was a very interesting and promising project because it would greatly help them to reduce the workload of experiments. What’s more, it could also assist them to think more about experimental innovation and project improvement instead of being tired of repetitive experiments.
Although our lecture was only for one morning, the response was pretty enthusiastic.We think it was an important and positive interaction with the public, and both children and parents said the event was pretty fun and helped them learn about new areas. At the same time, the staff of the Science and Technology Museum also commented on some flaws in our activities, such as the lectures can be more lively and more examples can be used. We took their comments seriously and tried to avoid these problems in our follow-up work.
Lecture in junior high school
We came to the class of Hefei No. 45 Middle School for delivering a lecture to students, which was mainly divided into three parts, introducing iGEM synthetic biology, introducing artificial intelligence and experiencing our platform.
We first distributed our brochures to everyone, in which the in-depth explanations and vivid models directly aroused great enthusiasm among the students. On this basis, we introduced the development of AI to them. These children were very interested in the intersection of AI and synthetic biology while learning a certain amount about AI. Then we focused on introducing synthetic biology and iGEM competition to the students. During the presentation, their eyes shone with curiosity about synthetic biology, and they expressed to us their imagination about the future applications of synthetic biology - we were amazed by the children's whimsical ideas. Their reactions made us more confident do well in human practice. When the iGEM competition was mentioned later, one student even expressed the idea of competing in the future as well. Finally, some children tried using our platform, and although they did not fully understand the functions of the platform, the students still showed great interest. We sincerely hope these students who are curious about synthetic biology can join us, becoming the future generation of iGEMers.
At the same time, the teachers really enjoyed the presentation. They also believed that this lecture would enable students to get in touch with this field earlier, and it could inspire their interest and make them imagine more about the future.
Lecture in senior high school
For high school students who will be entering college soon, they are not only equipped with a broader perspective and rich knowledge of biology, but also have the potential to participate in iGEM competitions or even become synthetic biologists in the future.
Our basic process was basically similar to the lecture at the junior high school.There are some slight differences that we added some more difficult knowledge and samples in our presentation.
Even after the meeting, they still asked our speakers about some key issues, such as the operation of machine learning algorithms, ethical issues of synthetic biology, and so on. At the same time, they were very eager to use our platform. And after using it, they gave comments on the art design of the page, the operation that can be optimized and the explanation of the model and the biological part. We listened carefully and optimized our platform.
To our surprise, some students wrote reviews on papers to express their appreciation for our work and some insights about synthetic biology as well as computer science.
"We hope that we can best combine biology and computer science to create a better future for humanity.” By a high school student.
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