Team:Virginia/HP/SilverGold
Description
Rivanna Wastewater Treatment Facility
Tim Castillo is a Wastewater Facility Manager at Rivanna Wastewater Treatment Plant in Charlottesville, Virginia. He gave us a tour of the Rivanna facility, gave a presentation on the wastewater treatment process, and sent us data from the Rivanna plant with regular to influent and effluent concentrations of various compounds. We have corresponded with Mr. Castillo throughout the project. Before our visit to Rivanna, the team had already decided we would be concentrating our efforts in wastewater treatment. We had conducted research into where wastewater originates and what kind of consequences exist, both pathogenic and environmental, if it goes untreated. The purpose of our visit, then, was to gain insight into what a device to improve the efficiency of wastewater treatment processes would look like. While Castillo gave us a full tour, we were focused specifically on the Bardonpho process. This five-step process is the Biological, or Secondary, treatment because it uses bacteria to remove harmful compounds. We were focused on ammonia, as our previous research indicated the importance of keep effluent ammonia levels low. The Bardonpho process is multiple steps because, within the process, oxygen concentrations vary between anaerobic, anoxic, and aerobic. In the aerobic condition, aerators pump air to fuel nitrification. Nitrification is the oxidation of ammonia to nitrites, which are then converted to nitrates.
Silver Medal Human Practices
iGEM teams are leading in the area of Human Practices because they conduct their projects within a social/environmental context, to better understand issues that might influence the design and use of their technologies.
Teams work with students and advisors from the humanities and social sciences to explore topics concerning ethical, legal, social, economic, safety or security issues related to their work. Consideration of these Human Practices is crucial for building safe and sustainable projects that serve the public interest.
For more information, please see the Human Practices page.
Silver Medal Criterion #3
Convince the judges you have thought carefully and creatively about whether your work is safe, responsible and good for the world. You could accomplish this through engaging with your local, national and/or international communities or other approaches. Please note that standard surveys will not fulfill this criteria.
Some Human Practices topic areas
- Philosophy
- Public Engagement / Dialogue
- Education
- Product Design
- Scale-Up and Deployment Issues
- Environmental Impact
- Ethics
- Safety
- Security
- Public Policy
- Law and Regulation
- Risk Assessment
What should we write about on this page?
On this page, you should write about the Human Practices topics you considered in your project, and document any special activities you did (such as visiting experts, talking to lawmakers, or doing public engagement). This should include all of the work done for the Silver Medal Criterion #3. Details for your Gold medal work and/or work for the two Human Practices special prizes should be put on those specified pages.
★ ALERT!
This page is used by the judges to evaluate your team for the medal criterion or award listed above.
Delete this box in order to be evaluated for this medal criterion and/or award. See more information at Instructions for Pages for awards.
Gold Medal and Integrated Human Practices
This page will contain information for your Gold medal Human Practices work, which you can also use to nominate your team for the Best Integrated Human Practices page. To make things easier, we have combined the Gold medal page with the Best Integrated Human Practices page since we expect the work to overlap considerably.
iGEM teams are unique and leading the field because they "go beyond the lab" to imagine their projects in a social/environmental context, to better understand issues that might influence the design and use of their technologies.
Teams work with students and advisors from the humanities and social sciences to explore topics concerning ethical, legal, social, economic, safety or security issues related to their work. Consideration of these Human Practices is crucial for building safe and sustainable projects that serve the public interest.
For more information, please see the Human Practices page.
Gold Medal Criterion #1
Expand on your silver medal activity by demonstrating how you have integrated the investigated issues into the design and/or execution of your project.
Best Integrated Human Practices Special Prize
To compete for the Best Integrated Human Practices prize, please describe your work on this page and also fill out the description on the judging form.
You must also delete the message box on the top of this page to be eligible for this prize.
Inspiration
Here are a few examples of excellent Integrated Human Practices work:
