We engaged with a science-focused audience of around 12,000 listeners and informed them on our work with the fluoride riboswitch, as well as basic synthetic biology. It is run by Calvin Yeager, a doctoral graduate student at UNC, who asked us to join him for an episode as he focuses on projects that directly impact “tax-payers and human scientists”. The podcast, CurioSCity, is based in Chapel Hill (UNC) which was important as we explained our inspiration for our project, which originated from a fluoride problem in Chapel Hill. The podcast was two episodes; the first discussing the process of making an iGEM team, fundraising, and the opportunities that become available. The second episode discussed the science behind our project, our goal for it, and its potential impact. Additionally, we explained how our project has evolved as we developed it over the past 3 years. The podcast gave us insight into how iGEM is a competition that provides valuable experience for those entering research fields, but isn’t yet as available as other competitions, such as Science Olympiads, especially at the highschool level. Listen to our podcast on Spotify here!
Presentation to PLTW Biomedical Board
To increase awareness in our own community about our project and the importance of its potential implications, we created and executed a presentation for the biomedical advisory board of our school district’s biomedical advisory board. Our presentation detailed iGEM’s mission, our fluoride biosensor research, and our accomplishments from the past two years. We outlined how excess fluoride contaminates drinking water and how our long-term goal is to combat the resulting detrimental health effects through awareness, detection, and sequestration. The board provided us with advice and potential future directions, as well as ideas for other possible human practices. Along with this, we discussed the problems with fundraising for iGEM and ways to potentially make it more accessible for students. The board directed us to grants provided by the district that allowed us to provide equalizing opportunities for people who wanted to participate in our team.
Library Fundraisers
We held many fundraisers outside of our local library, the Chapel Hill Public Library. We worked to raise money for our team, so we could attend the iGEM Giant Jamboree, but also so we could raise money and awareness to help improve rural North Carolina water infrastructure systems, specifically to benefit the NC Rural Center. We would inform people on our projects and answer their questions on fluoride as they passed by or if they were donating.
