On the 13th-14th October we decided to advertise our project in the school. We took our poster on the floor which had the most traffic of students and the school members who were interested in the project could receive further pieces of information and fill out our survey. Fortunately, many students were eager to gain more information, which really inspired us.
Giving a lecture to Nobel Laurate Prof. Bert Sakmann
On the 20th of April, we had the possibility to give a presentation to Mr. Bert Sakmann and Dr. Arthur Konnerth about our project. The scientists were very interested in this topic, therefore they asked us many inquiring questions, and advised us, which was a great honour for us. As Professor Sakmann regularly visits the Szeged Scientist Academy's events, we should inform him about the results in December this year. Some of our school members also participated in this presentation, and they were amazed that such a great project takes place in their school.
Lecture to University Students
Two members of our team represented our scientific research work in our hometown, at the Department of Biology at the University of Szeged on the 19th of October. For our greatest pleasure, university students were extremely eager to know about our scientific project. After our presentation, they asked a lot of interesting questions that made our members more enthusiastic. Approximately 250 students were present in our lecture. This opportunity make it possible for our team to develop communication skills and to raise young people's interests and widen their knowledge about synthetic biology.
Survey
We created an opinion survey in order to have a better idea of the perception of GMOs and methane by the public.
The survey was available for anyone online and has been filled out approximately 250 times.
It is important to mention that the majority of responses come from Hungary and almost 30% of
the interviewees are under 18.
Among these people 13% never heard about the expression "genetic engineering", but almost 30% said they know a lot about it.
The abridgment GMO was unknown for 21% of the respondents, 46% have heard about it but only know little,
and 32% claim to know a lot about them.
When asked, the interviewees said they were mostly informed about GMOs in school/university (60%)
and the internet (66%). Surprisingly only 19% marked television as the information source.
The approach of these sources were positive most of times, 42% to be exact, and only 18% said it was negative.
We were curious to find out what uses of GMOs would people support.
The results clearly show that medicine and
energy production is more supported than genetically modified food or chemical production.
The 80% agrees that global warming is caused by human activities while 15% are not sure
and 5% think it is a conspiracy theory. Those who agree usually (68%) also agree with the
use of GMOs which reduce the greenhouse effect.
It is widely known that, besides carbon dioxide and other gases, methane is also responsible for global warming.
But what percentage is methane's direct contribution to the greenhouse effect and what percentage of methane is
produced by Human-related sources?
In average the interviewees said that Human-related sources produce 55%, while this number is around 66%.
They estimated methane's direct contribution to the greenhouse effect around 50%, which is actually way above
the truth which is approximately 10%.
Methane can even cause accidents, mostly explosions yet 31% said they never even heard of any accidents caused
by methane.
Our last question was that "Where can methane produced by organisms be useful?".
