Team:UCSC/Public Engagement
Education
Bioethics
The UCSC iGEM team strives to spread the knowledge of our work, especially the ethical aspect of our project. At UCSC, there is a bioethics course that bioengineering students are required to take. The class focuses on ethical questions that arise from research in genetics, medicine, and other biological industries. To ensure that our project was truly well rounded, we wanted to present our project to the bioethics course that students were taking over the summer. We hoped to learn if our project is making a positive impact on our global community. After presenting our project to the class, we split into smaller groups to have more personalized discussions. The students provided both positive and negative feedback. They provided a different perspective on the ethics of our project. They helped us gain a better understanding of the repercussions to a heat-stable vaccine while praising our innovative method of intrinsically disordered proteins.
Big Data to Knowledge
We presented at the BD2K (Big Data to Knowledge) Summer 2019 Poster Symposium organized by the UCSC Genomics Institute. We interacted with the scientific community of UCSC, California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB), and the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras. We presented a poster that contained information about our scientific research and human practices that we had gathered so far. We discussed why our project was important, our current results, and speculated our future work with different audience members. The professors and students we talked to were another resource for us to criticize our project and find ways to improve it.
Classroom Education
UCSC iGEM visited multiple schools within the Santa Cruz County School District to educate students about our project and the emerging field of synthetic biology. We visited DeLaveaga Elementary School, Branciforte Middle School, and Harbor High School. At DeLaveaga Elementary and Branciforte Middle School, we did a short presentation about our project that included information about Newcastle disease, tardigrades, and vaccines. We encouraged students to ask questions and hoped to inspire the younger generations to pursue STEM.
At Harbor High School we visited the Biotechnology class which introduces students to the concepts and lab techniques that one would experience at a biotechnology company and as a STEM major in college. This class creates an environment similar to a biotechnology company by establishing different “departments” such as Research and Development (R&D) and Marketing. As guest speakers, we presented our project as a possible start-up company and related our research process with their course material. We were an example of how their class material could have real-world applications.
Public Engagement
Rotary International
Rotary International is an organization that unites people from all different backgrounds to increase welfare, compassion, and peace around the world through their local communities (Rotary International, n.d.). Currently, there are over 1.2 million Rotary members and over 35,000 Rotary clubs worldwide (Rotary International, n.d.). Rotary International’s guiding principles include service, global impact, and leadership. Each Rotary Club has specific charities that they are involved with. They organize events to raise money for different charities through their community outreach and support.
Since their values aligned with ours, we contacted the Sunrise, Aptos/Capitola, Scotts Valley, and Watsonville Rotary Clubs to present our project. The presentations were organized by Richelle Noroyan, the Community Relations Representative of UCSC. After our presentation at the Sunrise Rotary, we made a personal connection with a representative of Rotary International.
This led to Rotary International asking if our team would like to collaborate on their conservation services in Kasese, Uganda. The feedback we received at the Sunrise Rotary presentation reassured us that our project will have an impact on many different communities. Our connection with the local Rotary Clubs has created a foundation for future UCSC iGEM team collaborations.
Santa Cruz County Fair
Our team attended the Poultry Show at the Santa Cruz County Fair. Through a local 4-H Club we contacted Terry Reeder, who organizes the Poultry Show. We created flyers to educate the general public on the importance of recognizing symptoms of Newcastle disease. We emphasized how vaccinating their chickens against the virus can reduce the number of outbreaks in California. We paired these flyers with the consistent presence of our team members to answer questions and hear stories of how Newcastle disease has affected the lives of many Californians both lay and farmer.
Tech Meetup
We spoke at the Get Biotech 2019 Meetup in Santa Cruz organized by Santa Cruz Works and Santa Cruz New Tech Meetup. These two organizations create many meetup events to allow local biotechnology companies and UCSC professors to spread awareness of their work with members of the STEM field. As a research group that goes above and beyond to spread awareness of iGEM, synthetic biology, and global issues, we knew this event would be very beneficial to our team’s values. This event allowed us to practice presenting our project in a different way. We did a one-minute overview of our project summarizing the science and human practices.
We presented our project as if it was a start-up and we were trying to “pitch” the idea to established members of the biotech field. During the networking segment of the meetup, we handed out brochures and business cards. We were able to have face-to-face conversations and discuss our project in more depth. Through these conversations, we received positive feedback about the global impact and potential of our project. We were reassured that our heat-stable formulation can be a successful solution to some of the hunger issues that undeveloped regions face.
CornUCopia
UCSC organizes a fall festival called CornUCopia where incoming and returning students can discover the various clubs, organizations, and research groups that our campus has to offer. UCSC iGEM tabled at this event and we were able to spread awareness of the iGEM organization. We handed out brochures, business cards, and candy for those who were interested in our research group. We even had the 2020 team captains present to get future members excited about next year’s team and project.
Girls in Engineering
Girls In Engineering (GIE) is a five-day free program at UCSC for seventh and eighth-grade girls (GIE, n.d.). This program encourages interest in computer science and engineering through hands-on activities. The girls learn to program robots to pick up and carry objects, create 2D animations, build computer games, and tour labs at UCSC (GIE, n.d.).
Our team contacted GIE with the hopes of empowering young girls to pursue a career in STEM. GIE toured our lab where they were able to see a research project in progress. We explained the science behind the different experiments and discussed the human practices aspect of our project. Then, the females of UCSC iGEM visited their classroom and discussed the benefits and challenges of being a female in the STEM field. We hoped to be an example that it is possible to be a female and be successful in STEM. Seeing these young girls already taking an interest in STEM inspired us to stay motivated about our project.
References
1.) Rotary International (n.d.). About Rotary International. Available at: https://www.rotary. org/en/about-rotary. Accessed: August 26, 2019
2.) GIE (n.d.). UCSC Girls In Engineering. Available at: https://gie.soe.ucsc.edu/ girls-engineering. Accessed: August 26,2019
