Team:UChile OpenBio-CeBiB/HP/Silver
Silver Medal Human Practices
Making a Protocol for a correct importation
Chile has one of the strictest importation systems for organism from foreign countries, sometimes these formalities take several months and the study, introduction or culture are inviable because of the delay and expenses. However, knowing the existing protocols for internment of laboratory organism is very useful due to their continuous utilization and because they rarely are in national stock. For example, our previous team "Team OpenBio UChile" from the year 2015 had their DNA kit detained in national customs, so this year team UChile OpenBio-CeBiB made a protocol for the correct importation of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, microalgae with which we are working. To download the protocol, click here (it is in Spanish).
VI National Congress of Biotechnology Students
Members of our team had the pleasure to attend to the VI National Congress of Biotechnology Students, where students from all over the country expose their projects and ideas. It had a duration of 4 days, where we had talks, workshops and field activities related to biotechnology. During the week, we learned the applications of biotechnology in Chile, mainly areas related to bioengineering, marine and vegetal biotechnology. Being the last one the most interesting for us because it is straightly related with our project. After the congress, our assistants were benefited in different areas, from applications of biotechnology and plant biotechnology to how to expose in a simple and entertaining way.
VI National Congress of Biotechnology
Survey
We did 2 surveys, one face-to-face and the other online, with the purpose of determining what our fellow citizens know about science, pollution and scientific perception, Their question where:
Do you believe that one of our main problems as a country is pollution?
Who do you believe is the biggest pollutant?
Do you think that Greenhardtii project is useful?
It was possible to conclude that chilean population is aware of pollution and that we must fight against it. Additionally, an important number of people believe that industries and cars are the main pollutant, which means that air pollution is one of the most visible and dreaded pollution. As an interesting fact, around 10 people mention that human activity is ligated with a huge amount of pollution suggesting changes to our habits and improving environmental education should be achieved. On the other hand, the gender that is more aware of contamination are females with a 84% of the answers (males got 82%), and the age ranges that are more aware are 15 to 25 years and 36 to 45 years. Finally, for the last question most of the people said "yes", but some face-to-face answers that responded "no" explained that those resources must be invested on solar or eolic energy instead of capturig carbon dioxide.
So we could recapitulate these answers on: Industrial and cars emissions are one of the most perceived pollution and people will be more calmer if something useful and efficient is done with them.
