Team:MSU-Michigan/HP/Silver
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.
Overview of Outreach
At the start of the team's work we spoke with a few members of the waste-water treatment world in order to determine if our project was going to be useful to the community and if it was going to be effective. We also spoke at a forum on synthetic biology and genetic engineering at the Michigan Science Center. This included a presentation on our project as well as round table discussions with locals on what they thought about synthetic biology and legal, ethical, and moral complications. After this we presented at a women in engineering excursion on our project and synthetic biology in general trying to focus on getting the students interested in synthetic biology. We provided parts and instructions for them to make paper microbial fuel cells and demonstrated two working models. We also hosted the iGEM midwest meetup. This included presentations on our projects, board games, ice breaker activities, a nice lunch, a walk through the MSU gardens and an ice cream break.
The Waste-Water Treatment Plant
We visited the plant in hopes of leaving with a better idea on how to tackle the current issue of contaminated water supply. Bob, the manager of the plant, took us on a full tour displaying everything he could from where the water entered to where the solids and the clean water departed. Bob spoke told us about how water treatment is expensive and that the plant is barely getting by and using 40 year old equipment and machines. Late in the tour he told us some stories from when he visited some small villages in Nigeria where the people would drink water that was clearly contaminated as they had no choice and little knowledge of the contamination. This encouraged us to go ahead with making a cheap water contaminant detector.
Women In Engineering
Michigan Science Center
Midwest Meetup
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