Through its extensive practices in educational activities, Tsinghua iGEM 2025 addresses four key areas: youth enlightenment, inter-school collaboration, community engagement, and international outreach. Based on these key areas, we have constructed a multi-level, interdisciplinary model for science popularization and educational outreach. This model not only embodies the four core key areas and their intrinsic connections but also elucidates the educational objectives that underpin them.
Among our four core key areas, the youth enlightenment perspective mainly targets high school students (such as those in The Middle School of Qingdao West Coast New Area and Serior High School of Fu Quan). Through lectures and interactions, it stimulates their interest in synthetic biology and cultivates future scientific research forces. The intercollegiate collaboration perspective unites multiple universities to compile white papers and establish knowledge-sharing platforms, promoting the standardization and popularization of synthetic biology education. In our community engagement, we bring science to the seniors of the Tsinghuayuan community through accessible workshops on AI and synthetic biology. This initiative bridges the generational and technological divide, fostering greater scientific inclusion and educational equity. In the international expansion perspective, popular science activities combining SDG and synthetic biology are carried out in schools in Bali, Indonesia, integrating science communication with global issues and enhancing international influence.
These four key areas do not exist in isolation but form a three-dimensional educational network that interacts in a cycle and jointly promotes the development of synthetic biology. Youth enlightenment is the source, cultivating potential new forces for synthetic biology; intercollegiate collaboration is the link, weaving the knowledge sparks from the youth enlightenment stage into a systematic knowledge network through cooperation among universities; community engagement is the extension, transferring the knowledge system built by intercollegiate collaboration to a wider community group and achieving full-age coverage; international expansion is the sublimation, taking the experience and achievements accumulated locally to the world, sharing with the globe and participating in scientific education exchanges at the international level, and at the same time, introducing advanced international concepts to feed back to the local area. The four interact in a cycle and jointly promote the education and popularization of synthetic biology. Together, they form an “education ecosystem rooted in the local area and radiating to the world”, complementing and reinforcing each other.
The construction and practice of this model reflect the three educational goals of Tsinghua iGEM. First of all, we are committed to cultivating a scientific foundation. From teenagers to the elderly, from universities to communities, we systematically build the public’s cognitive foundation of synthetic biology and reserve social capital for the development of the discipline. In addition, we have built a cooperative ecosystem. Through intercollegiate and international cooperation, we integrate resources and share experiences to promote the standardized and large-scale development of synthetic biology education. Finally, we practice social responsibility through education, integrating science communication with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), showing that science is not only about technology but also about human well-being and the future of the earth.
In summary, The educational activities of Tsinghua iGEM 2025 are not only the transmission of knowledge but also a “systematic social experiment”: through multi-dimensional and cross-field popular science practices, a “sustainable and scalable science education model” has been built, which not only serves the iGEM competition but also contributes to broader social value. This is precisely the embodiment of the “public awareness and global vision” that modern scientific research teams should possess.
Qingdao, Shandong is nationally renowned for its developed brewing industry and as a coastal city. However, the current lack of proper vinasse treatment processes in Qingdao is causing severe damage to marine biodiversity. Therefore, at The Middle School of Qingdao West Coast New Area, we conducted science outreach activities for 500 high school students on using synthetic biology for vinasse treatment and marine biodiversity conservation. Through live teaching and Q&A interactions, we helped students understand the concepts and research methods of synthetic biology and popularized basic knowledge of genetic engineering. We specifically introduced how our project could be applied to Qingdao’s characteristic brewing industry to protect marine resources, sparking the students’ interest and enthusiasm. We actively answered their questions regarding vinasse utilization and marine resource protection, generating an excellent response on site.
We are committed to introducing the fundamentals of synthetic biology to a broader audience. To popularize important chassis organisms in synthetic biology to the public, the Tsinghua iGEM team collaborated with four other iGEM teams (JLUNBBMS, BUCT, NJTech, ZJUT, XJTLU) to produce a white paper. It introduced chassis organisms such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Pichia pastoris, Yarrowia lipolytica, Pseudomonas putida, E. coli (BL21), E. coli (DH5α), E. coli (NT1003), Bacillus subtilis, Salmonella, and probiotics, helping others interested in synthetic biology to understand the field.
We conducted three “AI for Elderly Empowerment:Bridging Technology and Golden Years” AI popular science lectures in the Tsinghua Yuan community (Lanqiying Community, Zhonglou Community, Heqingyuan Community). We taught senior citizens how to install and use AI applications on their phones, helping them enable voice input to overcome the inconvenience of typing. We also demonstrated AI image generation. The seniors were very excited to see AI create beautiful illustrations based on ancient Chinese poems, which made us feel proud. This activity bridged the gap between the elderly and cutting-edge AI technology, allowing people of all ages to benefit from advanced AI, contributing to educational equity.
Following the AI lectures, we also conducted science popularization on synthetic biology, explaining our current year’s project. The elderly listeners were very interested, offered many curious suggestions, and were optimistic about our project.
During our visit to the headquarters of Yanin Tech Cloud Platform, the company expressed a desire to collaborate with more domestic iGEM teams. They needed a sample iGEM-like project to promote their platform and demonstrate its suitability for iGEM needs.
Therefore, we provided Yanin with an iGEM alternative project, utilizing their platform for plasmid design, experimental recording, and data analysis. We presented and demonstrated this during a sharing session hosted by the company.
During the preliminary project phase, to help more people understand the current state of synthetic biology, we focused on four themes in iGEM: Health, Production, Environmental Protection, and Progress in synthetic biology. We published four popular science articles on our team’s WeChat public platform, detailing cutting-edge developments, interpreting relevant literature, summarizing findings, and proposing feasible prospects. These efforts were well-received, garnering over 1,400 total reads and significantly enhancing public understanding of the field’s development and future. This outreach successfully sparked more students’ interest in exploring synthetic biology.
To spread the concept of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to international students, we visited Dyatmika School, an international elementary and junior high school in Bali, Indonesia, and conducted SDG science outreach activities.
The water pollution problem in Bali, Indonesia, has been deteriorating continuously in recent years, mainly manifested in the proliferation of Marine plastic waste, the destruction of beach ecology and the slow progress of governance measures. To solve this problem and enhance students’ awareness of protecting water resources.Our lecture focused on the topic “The Role of Synthetic Biology in Wastewater Treatment”. We first emphasized the adverse effects of wastewater on the ecological environment and the close relationship between SDG 6 and wastewater treatment. Secondly, we specifically introduced key factors contributing to water pollution (chemical and biological factors). Finally, we selected past iGEM projects related to wastewater treatment for introduction, while also promoting the iGEM competition and synthetic biology.
Tsinghua iGEM 2025 conducted science popularization and education activities at four levels: high school, intercollegiate, public, and international. These included synthetic biology lectures in Shandong and Guizhou middle schools, co-authoring white papers with multiple universities, AI and synthetic biology outreach for seniors in the community, and promoting SDGs in Indonesia. These activities effectively disseminated scientific knowledge, stimulated youth interest, promoted cross-generational and cross-regional scientific education equity and cooperation, enhanced public awareness and acceptance of synthetic biology and AI, and vividly demonstrated our social responsibility and desire to popularize synthetic biology.