Education

Introduction

Core Implementation Principles

1. Guide participants to master popular science knowledge through immersive and gamified activities.

2. Conduct targeted interactive classes for a wide range of groups to achieve mutual learning.

We have designed interactive popular science scenarios and implemented them for a broad audience, covering seven groups: preprimary children, primary school students, middle school students, high school students, college students, adult workers, and the elderly. The regions involved include Inner Mongolia, Beijing, Henan, Zhejiang, and Yunnan.

Our educational practice is far more than one-way dissemination; instead, we aim to build a two-way Dialogue and Mutual Learning.

Therefore, focusing on the popularization of interdisciplinary knowledge that integrates synthetic biology with the Sustainable Development Goals, we have designed a series of immersive activities covering multiple age groups and backgrounds under the guidance of the original “PhAgri-cycle” framework, transforming the scientific core of the project into perceivable stories and experiences.

After the educational activities, we collect feedback from participants and promptly evaluate the educational effects to achieve more effective stakeholder connection.

We evaluate and summarize our educational activities from four aspects: Stakeholder, Issue, Mutual Learning (CAU-stakeholder), and Mutual Learning (Stakeholder-CAU).

Investigation and Feedback

1. Survey on the Current Situation of Popular Science Effects

• Location: Online
• Time: March-April
• Stakeholder: Through a social practice survey covering 85 questionnaires, based on the feedback from the popular science educated, we found the core contradictions and problems existing in the current popular science education.
• Issue:

  Uneven distribution of urban and rural resources leads to differences in effects (the coverage rate of rural popular science facilities is less than 1/3 of that in cities)

  Mismatch between content and audience needs (62.35% think the content is too difficult or too simple)

  Single form weakens the depth of participation.

• Summary:
  Through this survey, we have identified the real pain points of popular science education, which have become the scientific basis for us to evaluate educational effectiveness and dynamically adjust strategies. Therefore, we hope that every educational activity we hold truly serves “comprehensive literacy cultivation” rather than being a mere formality.

Based on the existing problems in popular science, the optimization of subsequent educational activities includes:

1. Developing “learning through play” immersive games to solve the problem of single form.
2. Evaluating the effects through feedback.
3. Design stratification according to urban-rural differences: for example, cities focus more on the life-oriented introduction of cutting-edge innovations in synthetic biology, while rural areas focus on popularizing the help of synthetic biology to production technologies.

2. Survey on the Awareness of Sustainable Development Goals

1. Location: East Campus of China Agricultural University
2. Time: April 15-April 27 (before the “BioBricks Create and Play” activity)
3. Stakeholder: Through the “BioBricks Create and Play” activity, we investigated the awareness of Sustainable Development Goals among college students, children, adult workers, and the elderly who participated in the activity.
4. Issue: Regarding the participants’ familiarity, accuracy of understanding, and willingness to understand the Sustainable Development Goals, we analyzed the effect of our activities on promoting the correct understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals.
5. Mutual Learning:

   CAU-stakeholder: This survey shows that about half (53.23%) of the participants had some knowledge of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) before, but there is still significant room for improvement in the depth of their understanding. The other half of the participants lack attention to the Sustainable Development Goals, which we did not expect at the beginning. In terms of the understanding of specific project-related solutions, such as addressing the issue of “antibiotic abuse” which is directly related to the project, more than half of the people (54.84%) only remain at the stage of “having heard but not knowing the measures”. This indicates that our educational activities designed for synthetic biology and Sustainable Development Goals have accurately targeted a cognitive blind spot where the public “knows what but not why”.

   Stakeholder-CAU: According to the subsequent project feedback (see details in 3. Survey on the Impact of Activities and Participants’ Satisfaction), we took the specific cases of the project as the carrier of the relatively abstract SDG concept. By introducing SDGs, connecting with global issues, and delving into global issues, we effectively achieved the cognitive deepening from “knowing the problem” to “understanding innovative countermeasures”, and stimulated participants’ in-depth thinking on realizing SDGs through synthetic biology.

3. Survey on the Impact of Activities and Participants’ Satisfaction

• Location: After each activity
• Time: During and after each activity
• Stakeholder: Combined with the content of each activity, we set up questionnaires related to activity satisfaction, participants’ learning interest, and assessment of learned content, and invited participants to express their opinions.
• Issue: In the “BioBricks Create and Play” activity, as high as 98.39% of the participants believed that the activity was “of great help” or “of some help” to understanding synthetic biology, among which 75.81% expressed “great interest” and would continue to learn about this field in the future. This directly proves the success of the activity in breaking disciplinary barriers and guiding the public to take the “first step”. Data also shows that after the activity, 70.97% of the participants thought synthetic biology was “interesting”, and 54.84% were “very optimistic about its application prospects”, successfully transforming the “profound and abstruse” discipline impression (40.32%) into an “interesting and promising” exploration field.
• Mutual Learning: This survey evaluated the effectiveness of our activities: we successfully carried out scenario-based interactive popular science for a wide range of groups. This is not only a transfer of knowledge, but also a successful enlightenment of scientific interest and establishment of confidence.

The Target Age and Region

Preprimary Children

1. “Shared Reading Plan” Jointly Embark on the Synthetic Biology Challenge

• Location: Kindergarten of the West Campus of China Agricultural University
• Time: June 24
• Stakeholder: Inspire preprimary children’ s awareness of life, and help them understand the iGEM thinking of “starting from the macro to the micro, and shaping the macro with the micro”.
• Issue:
  We conveyed to the children what iGEM is really doing. The course design centered on the iGEM thinking of “starting from the macro to the micro, and shaping the macro with the micro”, and designed three course themes: plant specimen production, butterfly specimen production, basic life genetics class. Starting from the macro flowers, plants, and animals that children can see in daily life, we then led them to the micro basic of life - genetic material, and gave vivid lectures. (For example, compare DNA to the “cell work manual” and cells to “hard-working little workers” in an organization to describe the high systematicness of life.)
• Mutual Learning:
  • CAU-stakeholder: Inspire children to use the iGEM’ s “discovery-solution” thinking to carefully observe daily life phenomena.
  • Stakeholder-CAU: The children’ s works convey their infinite imagination and longing for nature, which makes us think: Wasn’ t our initial motivation for learning biology and participating in iGEM exactly this longing and awe? This strengthens our original aspiration once again.

Primary School

1. CHUN GENG Program Bring Synthetic Biology to the Fields, Leave Love and Knowledge in Hearts

• Location: Zhongxin Primary School, Hebi, Henan
• Time: July 24-July 30
• Stakeholder: Enable primary school students in grades 3-6 to have a preliminary understanding of “what synthetic biology is, why it is studied, and what it does”, broaden their cognitive horizons, and encourage them to explore life sciences after class.
• Issue
  We focused on inspiring children’ s interest in synthetic biology. Therefore, we abandoned the traditional classroom model and turned our PPT into a story picture book: the protagonist is a teddy bear student named Chocolate, who enters a magical synthetic biology world and leads the children to explore together. For example, we compared the language system to the synthetic biology system to facilitate understanding; we used Chocolate’ s three twists and turns in wanting to eat ice cream to metaphor the feedforward and positive/negative feedback structures.
• Mutual Learning:
  • CAU-stakeholder: In Chocolate’ s tone, we put forward many questions and ideas that children may care about and be curious about, and answered them through dialogue and situational interpretation to increase the interest of the class.
  • Stakeholder-CAU: Zhongxin Primary School is located in the old area of Hebi, where the children have been separated from their parents for a long time and lack family companionship and care. This is the first time we have come into contact with left-behind children and spent such a long time with them. At first, we were worried about whether we could inspire the children’ s inspiration and interest. However, during the seven days of mutual companionship and care (eating, sleeping, and having classes together), we established a deep trust and connection with each other. This makes us realize that for marginalized groups like left-behind children, we are not speaking for them, but walking side by side with them.

2. Erhai Gusheng Village Primary School SDG Theme Course Tell the Story of Erhai’ s Sustainable Development to the Future Guardians

• Location: Gusheng Village Primary School, Wanqiao Town, Dali City (online)
• Release Time: June-August
• Stakeholder: We hope to convey the iGEM sustainable development concept to the children of Gusheng Village in the Erhai Lake Nature Reserve Basin, inspire them to form correct protection concepts, and take scientific measures to protect their Erhai home.
• Issue:
  We communicated with the children of Gusheng Village Primary School by Erhai Lake in Dali, Yunnan in an online form, and brought carefully designed sustainable development theme courses (including SDG13 Climate Action, SDG14 Life Below Water, and SDG15 Life on Land). We abandoned empty preaching and committed to “localized” teaching: integrating local issues such as Erhai protection and ecological agriculture into the explanation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), transforming the grand concept of climate action into practical actions that children can perceive and participate in.
• Mutual Learning:
  • CAU-stakeholder: Localized teaching can significantly improve children’ s participation, and local cases are more likely to arouse resonance. Children learn to transform environmental protection concepts into daily actions and enhance their sense of belonging to their hometown’ s ecological environment.
  • Stakeholder-CAU: Combining their own experiences, the children put forward many low-carbon action challenges, such as reducing the use of plastic mulch for vegetable planting, eating up all the food on the plate, and reusing cloth bags. We realized that children already have certain concepts and awareness of environmental protection.

3. Wande Home Community Project Plant a Seed of Sustainable Environmental Protection in Handicrafts and Stories

• Location: Wande Home Community, Haidian District
• Release Time: July 21-July 25
• Stakeholder: We targeted children and families in Haidian Community, and while telling stories, we made handicrafts together, bringing a scientific enlightenment and environmental protection awareness cultivation to the children.
• Issue:
  Through this popular science activity, we introduced the bacteriophage biopesticide designed by the CAU-China 2025 project to parent-child families, and inspired children’ s infinite imagination about future environmental protection technologies with a milder and more precise green solution. We designed interesting and operable interactive experiences, including:
  1. Origami and super-light clay handicraft making
  2. Telling the story of “bacteriophages fighting bacterial diseases” to “effectively reduce” the high carbon emissions caused by the application of chemical pesticides and antibiotics
  3. Imagination of environmentally friendly biopesticides
• Mutual Learning:
  • CAU-stakeholder: The parent-child interactive content we carried out around “Life on Land” (SDG15), “Life Below Water” (SDG14), and “Climate Action” (SDG13) effectively helped residents understand the concept of sustainable development and enhanced family scientific literacy and environmental protection awareness.
  • Stakeholder-CAU: This is our first attempt to promote the project in the community. The inherent connection of the community has made us deeply realize that it greatly promotes efficient participation and interaction, which creates a natural network channel for knowledge dissemination. Therefore, when designing popular science courses, we should pay more attention to the close connection between knowledge and residents’ lives.

4. Practice in BaLin Right Banner, Inner Mongolia Sow the Seeds of Synthetic Biology in the National Mother Tongue on the Grassland

• Location: BaLin Right Banner, Inner Mongolia
• Time: July 28-August 19
• Stakeholder: This activity was aimed at Mongolian primary school students. According to Target 4.7 of SDG4, quality science education must be culturally inclusive. Therefore, in the design and implementation of the activity, we regarded the Mongolian cultural background and language characteristics as valuable educational resources rather than obstacles to overcome. The following is the educational design we made for this special stakeholder:
  1. Educational premise: Respect and integrate their national cultural identity.
  2. Ensure that all scientific concepts can be explained in a way that is close to their life experience.
• Issue:
  We hope to break the children’ s stereotypical impression that “viruses are all harmful” and introduce the preliminary concept of biological control. A series of interactive activities were designed as follows:
  1. Making cell structures with plasticine
  2. Telling the heroic story of “bacteriophage warriors guarding plants”
  3. Making bacteriophage models with twisty rods
     During the process of hands-on operation and listening to stories, the children naturally understood the beneficial function of bacteriophages that can specifically target and kill bacteria.
• Mutual Learning:
  • CAU-stakeholder: Through this interaction, the local Mongolian primary school students have achieved significant growth. They realized that not all viruses are enemies; some viruses (such as bacteriophages) can be used by humans to protect plant health. This effectively alleviated their previous fear and misunderstanding of viruses, and sowed the seeds of rationality for their future acceptance and trust in green agricultural technologies such as biopesticides.
  • Stakeholder-CAU: The distinct cultural differences we felt when getting along with the children provided us with valuable reverse inspiration. We witnessed with our own eyes that when the scientific stories were read affectionately by the children in their familiar Mongolian language, the cultural identity and learning enthusiasm generated were incomparable to single-language teaching. This practice made us deeply understand that national culture is not a barrier to science communication, but a catalyst to enhance its effect. Language and cultural diversity are invaluable resources in popular science work. In the future, when designing science education for different groups, cultural integration must be considered as a core link.

Middle School

1. “Crop Guardian - Bacteriophage” Class in Wenzhou No.2 Middle School Diagnose Field Diseases, Inspire the First Lesson for Future Scientists

• Location: Wenzhou, Zhejiang
• Time: September 9
• Stakeholder: This activity was aimed at junior high school students. We chose this group as one of the key popular science objects because the junior high school stage is a critical period for the formation of scientific thinking and the exploration of personal interests. Therefore, our core goal is not only to transfer knowledge, but also to act as a “guide” and “enlightener”. Through the real agricultural scientific problems targeted by the project, we stimulate their curiosity about the cutting-edge field of synthetic biology, and guide them to think about how modern biology can be applied to solve global challenges such as crop disease prevention and control, thus sowing the seeds of devoting themselves to scientific research in the future.
• Issue:
  The course started with the plant disease phenomena that students can come into contact with in daily life, and guided them to review and compare the traditional chemical pesticide control and the developing biological control methods. We deliberately designed an “advantage and disadvantage analysis” session, encouraging students to think from multiple dimensions such as effectiveness, environmental impact, and sustainability. On this basis, we introduced the synthetic biology solution of this project - engineered bacteriophage particles, and demonstrated how to optimize the natural defense weapons through rational design. Through the above popular science ideas, we hope to let middle school students realize that innovative awareness often stems from a deep insight into and transcendence of the shortcomings of existing methods.
• Mutual Learning:
  • CAU-stakeholder: Through this in-depth classroom interaction, the students of Wenzhou No.2 Middle School not only learned to analyze complex agricultural problems from multiple perspectives and systematically, but more importantly, they initially mastered the core thinking path of synthetic biology - “Design-Build-Test-Learn”. This opened a new window for their future science learning.
  • Stakeholder-CAU: We were amazed by the solid scientific foundation and keen insight shown by the middle school students. Under the guidance of the class, they considered the core problems that our project aims to improve. This directly inspires us that when carrying out science communication to the public, we need to fully understand the specific audience. The students’ feedback will become an important basis for us to optimize project narration and design more challenging popular science content, promoting us to communicate and innovate to higher standards.

2. Afternoon Interaction with The High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China A Scientific Dialogue Beyond Synthetic Biology: An iGEM Afternoon with the iGEM High School Team

• Location: West Campus of China Agricultural University
• Time: September 16, 2025
• Stakeholder: Transform the “high-precision and advanced instruments” that could only be seen in textbooks into tangible scientific experiences, and inspire more high school students to imagine freely in the broad world of synthetic biology through equal communication.
• Issue:
  Experience the fun of synthetic biology through the original card game “SynBio Halli Galli” to quickly become familiar with the logic of genetic circuit construction; introduce the project design concept and discuss problems together; visit the electron microscope laboratory, explain the principles and sample preparation methods, and appreciate the rich and interesting microscopic images to stimulate interest in the subject.
• Mutual Learning:
  • CAU-stakeholder: This activity is not only a transfer of knowledge, but also a kindling of scientific interest. Looking at the light in their eyes when they faced the electron microscope images, we are more convinced that quality education starts with equal communication and is accomplished through real touch. We were once the guided ones, and now we have become the guides on the children’ s scientific journey, accompanying more young hearts into the broad world of synthetic biology.
  • Stakeholder-CAU: We were pleasantly surprised to find that many of the questions they put forward about the project design, such as the consideration of application time and the impact of applying bacteriophages on the soil, are scientific and necessary to consider. We gained inspiration from their fresh perspectives.

University

1. SynBio Challenges Lecture Let the Voice of Chinese Synthetic Biology Be Heard by More People

• Location: East Campus of China Agricultural University
• Time: April 27
• Stakeholder: This activity was aimed at university teachers and students with different disciplinary backgrounds. The goal of this lecture is not only to transmit information in one way, but also to build a platform for communication and inspiration. We are committed to promoting the International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM) and its derivative competitions in China to this key group. By demonstrating the outstanding achievements of Chinese teams in this field, we stimulate the scientific research interest of the younger generation in synthetic biology, and encourage them to regard this as an important path to realize their personal scientific research aspirations and participate in global scientific dialogue.
• Issue:
  We cooperated with the official SynBio Challenge and introduced the vigorous development of the domestic synthetic biology field through a special lecture. We focused on demonstrating how Chinese iGEM teams, including our team, combine project design with the Sustainable Development Goals, using this as a vivid case to break the public’ s superficial perception that synthetic biology is “detached from reality”, and transform it from an abstract concept in the laboratory into a tangible and participatory innovative practice.
• Mutual Learning:
  • CAU-stakeholder: For the teachers and students of China Agricultural University who participated in the activity, this lecture brought a substantial cognitive improvement. They not only fully understood the synthetic biology competition platform, but also clearly saw the great potential and development status of synthetic biology in solving major challenges such as agriculture, environment, and medical care through the successful cases of Chinese teams. This effectively shortened the psychological distance between cutting-edge science and young students, and inspired more people’ s confidence and determination to understand this vibrant field.
  • Stakeholder-CAU: Through this activity, we found that college students show a high degree of concern about improving their scientific research capabilities and planning their future academic careers through competition paths such as iGEM. Their questions not only focused on the competition itself, but also covered content such as the technical details behind the project and team collaboration experience. As college students ourselves, we can also feel that the younger generation is eager for not only conceptual enlightenment, but also specific practical opportunities. How to form a closer link between future popular science work and university courses and laboratory resources will be a challenge to be tried.

2. Popular Science Class for Internship Students at Erhai Science and Technology Backyard A Dialogue in a Courtyard: When Synthetic Biology Meets Erhai Governance

• Location: Erhai Science and Technology Backyard, Dali, Yunnan
• Time: July 15-July 19
• Stakeholder: At the Science and Technology Backyard by Erhai Lake in Yunnan, we held a unique interdisciplinary dialogue with our peers from the College of Resources and Environment: guiding them to re-examine sustainable development issues from the perspective of synthetic biology; in addition, we also listened to them share the history of Erhai governance and professional knowledge of biodiversity, completing a two-way inspiration and learning process.
• Issue:
  We discussed the environmental problems encountered by Erhai Lake in recent years, such as the “excessive water, excessive fertilizer, and excessive pesticides” in garlic planting in the Erhai Lake Basin, and the large-scale cyanobacteria bloom caused by sewage discharge into Erhai Lake. With “metabolic pathway design” as the introduction, we introduced the principle of our project using bacteriophage particles to reduce the use of chemical pesticides and the feasible protection measures for Erhai Lake.
• Mutual Learning:
  • CAU-stakeholder: The students who attended the class generally reported that the effect was very good. The course was clear and easy to understand, especially in the module introducing synthetic biology, they learned about the design of using biological methods to control the environment and benefited a lot.
  • Stakeholder-CAU: Regarding the discussion on environmental ecology and “Nature and Biodiversity” modules, they introduced us to some professional knowledge of ecology, including the measurement indicators and influencing factors of biodiversity.

All-Age Participation

1. Fluorescent Orienteering Light Up Synthetic Biology with Steps, Connect Sustainable Knowledge with Sports

• Location: West Campus of China Agricultural University
• Time: March 23
• Stakeholder: Targeting college students and young groups, combining campus sports with popular science to attract young participants interested in biotechnology and sustainable development.
• Issue:
  In the orienteering activity, interactive sessions such as synthetic biology quizzes and resource competition (marble clamping) were set up, integrating knowledge of engineered bacteria and biosafety into sports to solve the problems of popular science being disconnected from life and low participation.
• Learning and Conclusion: Through the two activities designed at the iGEM points, participants understood bioethics and sustainable development issues in the game, and enhanced their understanding of the connection between science and society. In addition, we found that the combination of sports and popular science can effectively enhance the participation enthusiasm of young groups, which may indicate that cross-scenario educational forms are more attractive.

2. BioBricks Create and Play Experience the Fun of Touching “Invisible” Synthetic Biology, Assemble the Possibilities of Life

• Location: East Campus of China Agricultural University
• Time: April 27
• Stakeholder: The activity was aimed at the public of all ages (4-60 years old), including college students, parents, children, community residents and other non-professional groups. The purpose was to break the barriers of scientific cognition and promote the popularization of synthetic biology knowledge and inclusive dialogue through the relaxed way of campus game activities.
• Issue:
  The activity transformed abstract concepts of synthetic biology into tangible and interesting experiences through 5 original interactive games (such as building genes with blocks, making biological components with colored clay, etc.), solving the problems of single popular science form and difficult-to-understand content.
• Mutual Learning:
  • CAU-stakeholder: 98.39% of the participants understood the basic concepts of synthetic biology, and 75.81% developed further interest in exploring it, initially establishing a positive perception of synthetic biology and confidence in scientific exploration.
  • Stakeholder-CAU: Feedback showed that gamified design can effectively lower the cognitive threshold. In addition, through observation during the activity, participants have a high acceptance of visual and hands-on educational forms, which inspires us to pay more attention to interactivity and interest in future activities.

3. SynBio Halli Galli A Deck of Cards, a Duel of Genetic Pathways

• Location: Flexible (suitable for any leisure time, gatherings, between classes, etc.)
• Time: Flexible
• Stakeholder: Mainly aimed at families, campus groups and teenagers. Through the form of card games, synthetic biology knowledge is naturally spread in relaxed competitions, suitable for 2-7 players.
• Issue:
  The game transforms the construction of synthetic biology pathways into a card duel. Through multiple rounds of iteration and optimization of icon design and rules, the recognition and playability are improved, solving the problems of boring knowledge transmission and difficult memory.
• Mutual Learning:
  • CAU-stakeholder: Participants imperceptibly master the functions of genetic components and pathway logic in the game, and enhance their understanding of the application scenarios of synthetic biology.
  • Stakeholder-CAU: Player feedback shows that rule simplification and visual optimization significantly improve the experience, which inspires us to attach importance to user testing and iteration in the design of educational products.

4. Molecular Show Bring Molecules to Life on the Screen, Root Science in Stories

• Location: West Campus of China Agricultural University
• Time: June 23
• Stakeholder: Mainly aimed at middle school students and college students, encouraging them to express scientific concepts through microfilm creation, and cultivating interdisciplinary thinking and artistic expression skills.
• Issue:
  Students wrote and performed microfilms about molecular mechanisms, transforming laboratory principles into stories, and set up the “Best Screen to Street Award” to guide them to think about how science can meet real challenges.
• Mutual Learning:
  • CAU-stakeholder: We hope to encourage students with a certain biological foundation to create based on their learned molecular biology knowledge, and fully consider the connection between knowledge and practical application. In addition, through the platform of the Molecular Show, more people have learned about the concept of PhAgri: PhAgri is not just a biopesticide; the original intention of our design of PhAgri is to solve existing problems using daily knowledge.
  • Stakeholder-CAU: At the film festival exhibition, we appreciated many creative works. The creators successfully transformed abstract scientific principles into concrete stories, showing excellent scientific expression skills. Through this attempt of combining liberal arts and sciences, we realized that science communication needs to be combined with humanistic expression to arouse more resonance.

5. Interactive Official Account Push Take Pushes as a Boat to Cross the River of Knowledge and Connect Thousands of People

• Location: Online
• Time: March-October
• Stakeholder: Aimed at the general netizens and the public concerned about science and technology education, especially groups unable to participate in offline activities, to carry out popular science beyond the limitations of time and space.
• Issue:
  Release activity previews, game guides, and synthetic biology popular science content through pushes, building a popular science platform that speaks continuously, and solving the problems of scattered educational resources and untimely information transmission.
• Mutual Learning:
  • CAU-stakeholder: Readers can obtain synthetic biology knowledge and project dynamics at any time, form a habit of continuous learning, and enhance scientific literacy.
  • Stakeholder-CAU: Text-image combined and interactive content is easier to spread, and users prefer clear and easy-to-understand rule explanations and practical guides.

Conclusion

In our educational activities, we explore how to integrate the content of the project itself into education in order to achieve more efficient stakeholder connections. According to the participants’ feedback, We have successfully enhanced the accessibility and depth of understanding of synthetic biology knowledge through multi-level and immersive educational forms.