Team:Lethbridge HS/Public Engagement
Public Engagement
Throughout this season we held a variety of public engagement activities to educate and engage the public in iGEM and our project. We were also able to learn their perspective on our project by involving ourselves with our community.
School Presentations
Some members of our team presented our project to one of our local schools, Catholic Central High School. We were able to introduce iGEM to our highschools, and introduce a larger population of high schooler's to synthetic biology. We answered questions from students and teachers about the ethics and safety precautions behind CRISPR and about working in the lab. We also promoted our future engagements to allow them to further explore the possibilities and opportunities of iGEM for those who were interested.
Music Showcase
Our team held a music showcase fundraiser, as a way to showcase our team members musical talents, and as a way to introduce our project and iGEM to our parents, and different members of our community.
Whoop Up Days Pancake Breakfast
Members of our team volunteered at the Whoop Up Days Pancake Breakfast to promote the opening of the new science building at the University of Lethbridge. We were not only able to promote the Science Commons building, but also introduced our project to members of our community. We enjoyed being able to discuss about iGEM and synthetic biology topics.
RNA Day
Our team got the opportunity to present our iGEM project, on RNA Day (Aug 1), to undergrad, graduate, and professors at our local university, as well as any members of the public who came to join. By presenting our project, we were able to receive feedback as well as hear any concerns about our project. For instance, we received advice on future goals for the wet lab we could try and accomplish such as completing an RNAse test.
Big Bang Weekend
For the opening of the science building in Lethbridge, our team had a booth setup inside the building. At this booth we were able to introduce people to iGEM, synthetic biology and our project. Through this public engagement experience we were able to understand how to explain our project to people from a non-scientific background, and learn their viewpoints on our project idea. Many people were highly interested in our project and couldn’t wait to hear more as our season continued. To watch the opening of our new science building click here!
Library Partnership
Our team had a partnership with the library this year. Through this library partnership, not only were we able to showcase scientific movies to the members of our community, but we were also able to have different activities set up for children. Some activities we set up were colouring, word searches, and a DIY DNA extraction. Through these activities we were able to introduce the field of synthetic biology to the future of our community.
aGEM AND OTHER CONFERENCES
Canmore High School Jamboree
We attended the High School Jamboree competition put on by our main sponsor MindFuel’s geekStarter program, hosted in Canmore this year. We were able to receive feedback on our project, and ideas for improvement. This was our first time doing a formal presentation, and it was a good experience as we were able to learn what parts of our project were unclear to our audience, who were predominantly in the robotics field. We also received the award for ‘Most Potential Impact.’
JulyGEM
A few members of our team attended JulyGEM in Calgary, where the iGEM teams from Calgary, Edmonton, and Lethbridge attended. During JulyGEM we were able to provide a pitch on our project, and receive feedback from all the other iGEM teams that attended. JulyGEM was also a way to collaborate with other iGEM teams and build connections.
Edmonton aGEM
Our team attend the annual Alberta Genetically Engineered Machines (aGEM) competition put on by MindFuel’s geekStarter program in Edmonton, where we presented our project, and received feedback from the judges. This experience was a practice round for Boston, and a way to make any changes to our project before we attended the Jamboree. We also won the award for ‘Best Collaboration’.
BioTreks Paper
Our team published two papers on the BioTreks website. One of our papers was a design paper on “Detecting and Targeting Pathogenic Bacteria Using a CRISPR-Cas13a system.” We also published a perspective paper on “Perspectives on the Current and Future Uses of CRISPR Technologies.” These papers allowed us to collaborate with different people, as we received feedback and advice for our papers from judges and peers based in Canada and the United States. In our design paper we also received five medals for problem solving, scientific rigor, innovation, education, and visual communications. For our perspectives paper we received three awards for biosafety and ethics, scientific rigor, and education.