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Team:Consort Alberta/humanpractices
From 2014hs.igem.org
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Human Practices
Introduction Community Outreach
School Involvement Interviews
Over the iGEM season, we have been focusing on community outreach. We've been striving to educate, enlighten, and engage individuals and groups in our community concerning the matter of genetic engineering, and synthetic biology. In order to achieve this goal, we have done several formal presentation to the members of the PLRD school board, the Consort Lion Club, and the Veteran Lions club. Several of our senior members created this presentation specifically to introduce the basic premises of synthetic biology, our project and techniques/procedures used. We have show elementary students a similar presentation and advocate iGEM and in our school. We specifically target students entering senior high who may be interested in joining the team next year. In addition, we've promoted iGEM through our local newspaper, the Consort Enterprise, by having several articles, photos, and updates put in for subscriptions across Alberta and even across Canada to see. These articles update and explain our project, and the competition while encouraging support, involvement and interest in our team. Furthermore, we have had several discussions with key members of our economy concerning potential implementations, uses and improvements to our project.
Our presentations to community groups this year have included the Consort Lions Club, the PLRD School Board, and the Veteran Lions Club. To keep our community updated and let people know what we have going on in the science lab, every workshop or event that we do goes into our local newspaper, the Consort Enterprise. Many articles and photos over the past year have gone through the paper, and so there have been many people that have red up on the articles and become more aware of iGEM and how our team is progressing. The issues in which the articles are contained in are (APRIL, MAY STUFF, DATES....)
Elaine Devine - Partner owner of the major oil company T&E Pumps. Elaine gracefully agreed to meet with us and discuss the practicality portion of our project. Elaine was widely impressed with the work we are doing and the dedication of both students and supervisors. After briefly mentioning potential uses for our biobrick, Elaine brought up the idea for not only using the E. Coli as a way to test soil for xylene on a industrially level but also on an individual scale. General concern for the environment and future generations coupled with the fact that many farmers and ranchers have oil wells on their land led Elaine to suggested the use of the genetically modified E. Coli as a simple way for individuals to monitor the level of pollution in their soil. When asked if detecting trace amounts of xylene would be useful she responded with a resounding 'maybe!'. After bringing up the point that certain types and amounts of oil can actually be beneficial and act as fertilizer, she mentioned that the detection of trace amounts of xylene could allow a good option for the monitoring of the concentration of xylene over long periods of time. While giving presentation, talking with students, conducting interviews or casually visiting in the grocery store, our initiative has been praised, and our work received with fascination.
David Bruha - Editor of the local newspaper, the Consort Enterprise. Dave gave the team his input about the aspects of potential inidividual and industrial use of our device.
