Overview And Inspiration
Rice is one of the most important foods in Taiwan. Families eat it every day, and it is closely tied to our culture and way of life. But hidden inside this daily staple is a problem that many people do not notice: arsenic. Eating rice with too much arsenic over time can cause serious health problems, such as cancer and other illnesses.
When we talked to farmers and consumers, we found that many people did not know much about this risk. At the same time, there are not many simple tools for testing arsenic in rice. This inspired our team to work on a solution. We are building a biosensor that can detect arsenic in rice quickly, cheaply, and easily. With this tool, we hope farmers, families, and health workers can check rice safety more often and prevent health risks.
We also learned that synthetic biology is still a new idea for many people in Taiwan. Some see it as unnatural or unsafe. Because of this, we also focus on education. By sharing our project and teaching about how synthetic biology works, we want to show how science can directly help people in their daily lives.
Why It Matters
Our project connects to big global goals. By lowering arsenic risks, we support good health and well-being. By making rice safer, we contribute to zero hunger. And through our workshops and outreach, we also promote quality education by helping more people understand both food safety and science.
In carrying out our projects, we consistently upheld two guiding principles:
- Education should remain open and accessible to all people, regardless of age, gender, location, social standing, or physical ability.
- Feedback from participants should be used to shape future initiatives, encourage ongoing learning, and create opportunities that can be passed on to future generations.
Young people are very important for the future. By reaching out to students from elementary school to high school, we hope to inspire them to care about safe food and sustainable farming. We design activities that are interactive, fun, and easy to understand, so students can share what they learn with their families and friends.
At the same time, we also focus on farmers and the general public. By creating simple teaching materials and demonstrations, we help people learn how arsenic affects rice and why our biosensor matters. Our goal is not only to create a tool but also to build a community that understands and works together for safe and healthy food.
School
Elementary School
To promote our project, we made contact with an elementary school and decided to teach a lesson to the students there. We introduced them to the topic of arsenic threat in rice in Chinese, aiming to make things clear and understandable. Since it is easier to understand, raising awareness will be a whole lot easier. To reinforce their learning, we used riddles and cute pictures to help them learn faster. Then, after the lecture, we invited some of the kids up to the stage with us and we taught them the proper way to clean rice. Making the kids have a better experience and understanding of the course.
The riddles that the kids are guessing include descriptions of different things related to everyday things we consume. For example, for eggs, we say yellow on the inside and have an area outside that can be cooked into various forms. For further education, we included what is in rice and why it is good for us to reinforce their basic knowledge about this topic we are dealing with.
Furthermore, we explain to them about the toxic things that are in the rice we consume every day. Starting with what heavy metal is in simple terms, and slowly leading them to arsenic, a kind of toxic heavy metal. We told them that heavy metals are something we can’t see or feel when we eat, but they harm our bodies. A type of heavy metal is arsenic; the reason it is in rice is because of the pollution of the environment. Factories that emit nuclear waste into the river, and most of the crops absorb the water from the river, which is a serious problem. Most of the kids have questions about what will happen if we eat too much rice containing arsenic. If nothing happens, why should we be concerned? We explain to them patiently by questioning them back. Do you want your memory to be lost faster? Stomach uncomfortable? They answer no, and we carry on saying that this is why we shouldn’t consume too much arsenic.
Attended Schools:
- Taichung City, Tanzi District. WHS Elementary School; Grade 5-6
- Buzi Elementary School; Grade 2-3
Junior High School + High School (Grade8-10)
In order to further our cause of advancing rice education, we reached out to Washington High School as well, adapting our material for the older age groups. Because high school pupils are at an age where they will be able to learn advanced concepts, it was important for us to educate them on the nutritional content of rice at an advanced level and on the food safety aspects concerning the use of lead. In imparting this information, our aim was not only to educate them but also to empower them so that they might spread the word among their people and their homes as well.
We started the lesson by presenting the main nutritional components in rice, i.e., starch, protein, and essential trace elements, as follows: Mg, Zn, and Fe. Based on this point of departure, we created an awareness about toxic heavy metals, their nature, their existence in rice due to the use of chemical fertilizers, and their possible health implications. Here also, arsenic was given a special emphasis where the risk of excess consumption was established, as well as linking the problem altogether with the objectives of our project.
To make the lesson practical and enjoyable at the same time, we also added an interactive part where the students learned how to wash rice properly as a simple but efficient way of reducing arsenic intake. In addition to consolidating their understanding, the practical part also gave them a valuable skills set to share back home with others, further increasing the reach of our project.
In the teaching slide, the below were covered.
1. Nutritional Value of Rice: Starch, protein, and trace elements (Mg, Zn, Fe).
2. Heavy Metals in Rice: What you need to know about toxic heavy metals, how they occur, and their danger.
3. Interactive Activity: Special attention on arsenic, its health implications, as well as its relevance in our project.
4. Interactive Exercise: Demonstration and practice on the proper washing of rice for reducing the ingestion of arsenic.
Attended School:
Washington High School (Grade 8-10)
Educational materials
(English)
(Kazakh)
(Russian)
In collaboration with the NIS Kazakhstan iGEM Team, we participated in a multilingual children’s book in English, Kazakh and Russian to develop a chapter story related to our RiceGuard project. This initiative aimed to introduce the concepts of how food contributes to our health to younger audiences in an engaging and accessible way.
Conclusion
In doing the above, we indeed integrated the science knowledge with the practical activities, so the students not only could learn the science behind the rice but could also use it in practical application.
