Team:Waterloo/Integrated Practices
Policy & Practices
Human practices work was central in so many aspects of our project. The work we completed in human practices was integral to the direction of the wet lab portion of the project Our work was also constantly influenced by the data and information we collected when interacting with stakeholders, the public, and experts.
To make our project accessible to our community, we designed an implicit association test or “IAT” to evaluate potential unconscious bias towards technical terms related to our project which guided the way we communicated our work.
Waterloo iGEM integrated novel and creative ideas to help bridge knowledge barriers when explaining foundational advance projects to relevant stakeholders by creating the game Snake 35 as a fun and interactive experience to explain our project in a safe and novel way.
We also uncovered problems common to several local iGEM teams at the Ontario iGEM(oGEM) meetup. We realized that many teams struggle communicating the learning curve required in joining an iGEM Human Practices team. In response we created a policy & practices handbook that broke down many aspects of what it means to be an iGEM policy team member and how to successfully integrate human practices into an iGEM project. We hope this guide will be helpful to many future iGEM teams.
We also alleviated financial costs for our team by creating 3D printing files of some essential lab equipment which is available for all iGEM teams to access.
As well, we documented and conducted interviews throughout the year as cited in the Gold Medal page. These interviews with experts helped influence the design of the project, additional applications, and the direction of social media campaign.
