Team:ITESO Guadalajara/Public Engagement

Public Engagement and Education

We recognized that a way to improve the management of water and air effluents in the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara is through the communication and explanation of the problematic and the wide field of possibilities to deal with it. Therefore, we participated on the climate university strike exposing our project and its approach through the synthetic Biology. Also, we gave some interactive conferences with groups from two colleges and our university. In addition, we explained our project and its approach trough the synthetic Biology to 6? Groups interested on the undergraduated studies of Public Management and Global Politics and Biotechnology. Finally, we release our documentary called “Our trench” to a group of 120 at the university with the intention of making the people aware about the problematic and its implications.

Schools

ITESO
University

Climate
Strike

Documentary
Launching

Schools

Anahuac Garibaldi

On October 11th, RubisCO went to talk to 22 students and their teacher about the environmental problematic in the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara and how we are trying to solve it using Synthetic Biology. Finally, we talked to them about how engineering degrees can work in collaboration with other professions to solve environmental issues.

1. Attendees interested in Synthetic Biology: 45%
2. Attendees that evaluate our project positively: 90%

Costa Rica

On October 9th, we went to talk to 40 students and 5 teachers from the “Colegio Cervantes Costa Rica” high school about the environmental problematic in the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara and how we are trying to solve it using Synthetic Biology. After the presentation, we gave two educational workshops: “Biotech Engineering” and “Integral Design”.

1. Attendees interested in Synthetic Biology: 62.5%
2. Attendees that evaluate our project positively: 92.5%

ITESO University

2150px

Vive ITESO

v

On October 17 th , RubisCO participated in an activity called “VIVE ITESO” which objective is to promote many options for high school students about the college degrees; among them one of the options is engineering in biotechnology. We achieved this through an activity related to what we are studying, like DNA extraction, and talking about what it is focused on and what you can achieve in a biotechnology. We also spoke about our project and what we are doing in iGEM and how this is involved with many other study areas seeking to achieve a same goal.

Social and Historical Context class

On September 27 th , RubisCO went to a multidisciplinary course of historic and social context with 23 students and their teacher, with the purpose of promoting the iGEM competition that seek to solve some problems using synthetic biology and genetic engineering. Also, the project was presented and explained that we were working on this since the beginning of the year with the aim of contributing to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions and to improve operation of wastewater treatment plants in the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area.

1. Attendees interested in Synthetic Biology: 100%
2. Attendees that evaluate our project positively: 100%

Climate Strike

Global Climate Strike

On September 20 th , RubisCO participated on an active strike at ITESO University as part of the Global Climate Strike convened by Greta Thunberg. During this event, the draft was presented to the college community and talked about the problematic everyone is facing day by day. Moreover, in the roundtable dialogue, the team leader and other pro-environment groups, that are in ITESO, talked about their actions and strategies to mitigate climate change. And certainly, the leader conversed about our synthetic biology proposal.

Documentary Launching

Our Trench

In order to approach the stakeholders and communicate our main problem we worked on the production of a documentary. On the documentary we introduce a narrative regarding water and air management from the public and private sector on the possition of the stakeholder among the issue and those who get the impact of the poor management. Once this was done, we launched the documentary in a free entrance auditory from the university, where we received the opinions and appreciation of an audience of 120 people.

The documentary shows the opinion from the public, private and affected stakeholder of the problematic: Pablo Montaño (Environmental activist), Carlos Figueredo (Proffesor and researcher at ITESO), Javier Clausen (UN habitat advisor and professor and researcher at ITESO), Estefany López Murillo (Jalisco Quality air management director), Daniela Chávez (Councilwoman and president of the Environment committee of Tlaquepaque) , Sofia Enciso ( member of “Un salto de Vida”) and Abigail (Temacapulin inhabitant and President of the committee “Salvemos a Temacapulín, Acasico y Palmarejo“.