Team:Stuttgart/Collaborations
European Wastewater Meeting Collaboration
In order to connect and exchange information with other iGEM- teams, which also have their focus on the wastewater sector, we have held regular "European wastewater meetings". The event was organized by the iGEM- team of the University of Kaiserslautern. Due to COVID-19 and the different locations, all meetings took place online. In addition to the University of Kaiserslautern, this collaboration included the iGEM- team of the Universitiesy of Darmstadt, Zurich, Aalto-Helsinki and GenerationMendelBrno.
We discussed upcoming events, current topics regardingfrom the laboratory and our own research. Our goal wasis to have a constructive discussion about current problems and obstacles (e.g. in the laboratory, finding help with the wiki) and to find a solution together. In addition, we regularly exchanged information about the current status of our projects, as many of us had problems working in the laboratory because of COVID-19. Through the lively exchange of our topics we were able to find new links for further collaboration and to bring our project forward by connecting our research with each other.
Therefore, it was also very interesting to see whatwhich ideas and innovations were developed and presented by other teams from the wastewater sector. Through this collaboration we wanted to contribute to strengthen the internal iGEM community by working together with another team to solve problems and contribute to new ideas.
Collaboration
Social Media Collaboration Tübingen
Besides working in the lab and doing research, science communication is a very important part in the life of a scientist. How are you going to convince the public that the research you are doing is important, if no one knows about the problem you are addressing or the solution you are working on finding. Therefore, we used Instagram as our platform to inform the public about water related problems and solutions in collaboration with the iGEM team Tübingen. Hence, we posted short informative schemes and facts, easy to read and remember.
Working together in science communication made perfect sense since iGEM Tübingen is working on a riboswitch system for detecting heavy metal ions in ground water and our project LAC MAN focuses on purifying waste water from drug residues using immobilized laccases. After narrowing down our topics, together our teams set up a schedule on when to post on instagram to reach as many people as possible. We decided to alternate between both teams, so one post would be shared every week on Mondays between six and eight pm - the time most people are generally online. Apart from the people following us already, we were able to reach 10 % more users by adhering to this technique. Choosing appropriate hashtags has definitely contributed to this increase in range of influence.
First, we wanted to start addressing this topic by explaining different types of water bodies and their differences before going more into depth, talking about water pollution globally and locally (in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg). While team Tübingen informed their users about heavy metals, we focused more on organic pollutants. By portraying the relevance and impact of water pollution and giving some advice on how one can contribute to solving this problem we hope we could inspire the public to take initiative. Below is a slideshow of the number of visitors and an example post. For more information visit our Instagram page igem_stuttgart.