Team:TU Dresden/HP/Silver
March for Science, 22 April 2017
SCIENCE, NOT SILENCE
Science influences very different aspects of our daily life. It is critical to health, economics, food security, and safety. Being part of an iGEM team brings us an even closer in touch with what it means to be a scientist and how important the acknowledgement from public policy and society is for our work.
To celebrate science and strengthen the role of science in policymaking our iGEM team joined the March for Science in Dresden on April 22, 2017. Main goals of the march were to support evidence-based policy making, government funded research and transparency in science. The initial “Scientists March on Washington” was supported by a series of marches in more than 600 other cities all around the globe.
Our international team represents a diverse and inclusive scientific community that is one of the ideals behind the march of science. Furthermore, the issue of acceptance of the consensus on climate change and evolution is something we also have strong feelings about and what we contributed to by our iGEM goes green initiative.
As young scientist, we walked through the baroque city center of Dresden to demonstrate what value scientific research has for our community. Scientifically proven facts should be taken more seriously in political decisions. Showing solidarity with the world wide scientific community and representing our values and interests was an impressive experience. We march forward with Science.
Sources: https://www.marchforscience.com/mission/, 09.09.2017 https://www.marchforscience.de, 09.09.2017
Long Night of Sciences, 16 June 2017
As part of giving back to the community, we hosted a booth at the Long Night of Sciences, an annually event taking place in many cities throughout Germany. We focused on introducing iGEM and synthetic biology to the public in Dresden. We tried to increase awareness of the beauty and ethics behind the things we do. To keep all ages entertained, we had Legos and gave instructions to kids on how to build BioBricks. Different colors of big bricks corresponded to different genes, like fluorescent proteins, smaller bricks corresponded to different promoters and so on.
We also offered strawberry DNA extraction, where kids could extract DNA by mashing them with their hands in bag of soap and then extracting the DNA in cold ethanol. As the children where entertained with their Legos and strawberry pounding, the parents were conversed with the latest research in biotechnology and we presented our project in synthetic biology. The parents were entertained and showed deep interested in BioBricks and synthetic biology in general. At the end of the day, successful young kids scientists were able to keep a tube of strawberry DNA and parents were left in awe of what their children were cable off.
Some impressions:
