Team:UFlorida/Education
Science Communication
REACHING OUT TO PROFESSIONALS AND STUDENTS
Team Florida’s Human Practices members were able to successfully communicate the importance of our project and educate people about the dangers of harmful algal blooms such as Red Tide. One such effort was through partnering with Florida Sea Grant to give a presentation as part of their online webinar series, Bite-Sized Science. This series serves to educate both current research professionals and students alike, as they are free to join and accessible through Zoom. We were able to not only speak about the iGEM competition, but also the specifics of our project. We wanted to demonstrate why phosphorus detection was important and how we set out to complete our project. We were able to connect with 34 attendees in total, and in a post-presentation survey, 100% of participants reported that they either “Agree” or “Strongly agree” that they learned something from our presentation. Check out our Bite-Sized Science presentation slides below!
Bite-Sized Science Presentation HEREAt the end of our presentation, our team had the opportunity to learn more about the Bite-Sized Science effort and about the attendees as part of a debriefing with Dr. Maria McGuire. Our webinar presentation reached participants on the other side of the world and participants ranged from Florida Sea Grant researchers to Escambia County government officials. Dr. McGuire runs the Bite-Sized Science webinar series and explained to us that our presentation will be posted on their website and can be referred to at any point and by anyone. We believe the increased accessibility of our project will help spread the word about the detrimental effects of excess environmental phosphorus and encourage further research into preventing this tragedy.
TEAMING UP WITH TEAM iGEM FSU
In a collaborative effort with Florida State University’s iGEM team, we were able to create an informative video about the competition to show to high school students and encourage involvement. This video showcased not only iGEM as a unique research opportunity, but also the past accomplishments of both Florida teams and the impact of their work. This media was easy to distribute across schools around the state. We were also able to do personal virtual meetings with some schools to discuss any questions and talk directly to students about our experiences. Through these efforts, Team Florida was able to give back to their communities by sharing their knowledge and fostering interest in students preparing to enter secondary education.
Pictured above are team representatives from UF and FSU meeting with College Academy at Broward College’s students and faculty. Both teams presented the video and fielded student questions at the College Academy at Broward College. Students expressed great interest in starting their own iGEM chapter at their high school and later on at their respective colleges.
LANGUAGE ACCESSIBILITY:
Our Human Practices also got in contact with various University of Florida students and faculty to make our project’s description accessible in multiple languages. We were able to get accurate translations in Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese. The issue of eutrophication, although prominent in Florida, is an environmental issue that damages areas all over the globe. Being an international competition, it was important to us to have our work be available and easily understood by as many people as possible. Check out our translations on our Home page!
*image from: APA World Language