<p style="font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Open Sans'">On August 1st, also called “RNA Day”, our team decided to help the University of Lethbridge Collegiate iGEM team at a booth set up at our local farmer’s market. This public engagement activity introduced the members of our community about iGEM, in addition to the work that both the collegiate and high school iGEM teams have accomplished. Our booth interacted with the community by providing different activities, such as synthetic biology based colouring sheets and toothpicks and marshmallows to make DNA. People at the Farmers Market were even able to conduct a DNA extraction experiment, which allowed them to venture into the types of activities that members of iGEM partake in. </p> <br>
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<h1 style=" font-size: 25px;font-family:Montserrat;"class="w100"><b>Whoop Up Days</b></h1>
<p style="margin-top:-25px;font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Open Sans'">Our team had a booth at our local summer carnival, Whoop Up Days, to promote synthetic biology and iGEM. The booth allowed individuals to learn about iGEM and how to pipette. We were even able to raise over $100 in donation through selling our own designed stickers. This booth was successful in bringing awareness to synthetic biology in addition to fundraising.
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<h1 style=" font-size: 25px;font-family:Montserrat;clear: both;"class="w100"><b>iGEM Music Recital</b></h1>
<p style="margin-bottom: 10px;font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Open Sans'">We held a music recital to showcase the musical abilities and talents of our team members, in addition to raising money to send more representatives to Boston. We were also able to engage with our community by giving a presentation on iGEM, our project and synthetic biology as a whole. </p>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Open Sans'">The first place where we publicly presented our project was at the aGEM in Canmore. Our
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project at that time was focused on desalination. However, after conversing and doing a few calculations with the judges, we soon realized that our system would be incompetent with salt. As a result, we decided to change the focus of our project to the capture and removal of metal ions in tailings instead. This pivot turned our potential users from places requiring potable water from seawater, to tailings and wastewater treatment plants. At Canmore, we received the award for “Best Opportunity Analysis”, as well as a prize of $1800.
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<h1 style="font-size: 25px;font-family:Montserrat;clear: both;"class="w100"><b>North American iGEM Kickoff</b></h1>
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Open Sans'">Our team had the opportunity to go to Calgary for the North American iGEM Kickoff. We were able to present a basic outline of our project, as well as listen to the projects from collegiate teams. This allowed us to expand our knowledge and interest in synthetic biology. At the Kickoff event, we were able to improve our project from the judge’s feedback, as well as gain advice from other iGEM teams in North America who participated in the conference. For instance, we received contact information for different people as this would help us for the future integration of our project. From this helpful information we were able to improve and better our project over the summer for aGEM in September.
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Open Sans'">After the North American iGEM Kickoff, our next stop was aGEM in Calgary. In aGEM, we presented our project to a panel of judges, along with various other iGEM teams. At this event, we received valuable insight and gained more experience with answering questions; this helped us improve our system in the final stretch before the Jamboree. At aGEM, we received the award for “Best Modelling”, as well as $1000 for the work on our project.
<p style="margin-top: -25px;font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Open Sans'">We had the opportunity to present at the University of Lethbridge’s Chinook Symposium, where high schoolers, undergraduates, and graduates present their research to scientific experts, as well as the public community. Our team had a poster set up at the Symposium that introduced the University as well as its members, to this years high school iGEM project. We gained expert advice from the scientific community, and everyone was very interested at what our project had to offer. Furthermore, we were able to answer questions about our system,which introduced us to the types of questions our project may receive from a scientific expert. By participating in the Chinook Symposium our team was able to become prepared for the poster presentation we would experience in Boston.
<p style="font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Open Sans'">We wrote a scientific paper, called <a href="https://bioconverse.breezio.com/article/4947206714907690487/capture-and-removal-of-ions-in-ocean-water-using-bacteria-and-bacteriophage">“Capture and Removal of Ions from Seawater",</a>in a peer reviewed website to gain feedback on the design of our system. We received six medals on our BioTreks paper for the following achievements: Problem Solving, Conference Participation, Scientific Rigor, Innovation, Collaboration, and Visual Communications. Additionally, one of our team members, Michelle Wu, received a special recognition award for her excellent participation in the online conference that took place. BioTreks helped us extend our project as a result of the questions and comments posted on it by the public; for example, some areas of unclarity were mentioned, which improved our scientific language in our presentations.
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Revision as of 22:51, 16 October 2018
HUMAN PRACTICES
HUMAN PRACTICES
Our team had the opportunity of receiving a tour of the Wastewater Treatment Plant in Lethbridge. This plant was built in the early 1900s and it is a biological nutrient facility, which makes it belong to the top five percent of all the treatment plants in the world. The plant removes phosphorus,nitrogen, ammonia, total suspended solids, biochemical oxygen demand (pollution), as well as works to reduces fecal and total coliform. The wastewater treatment plant is licensed under the Alberta Government which ensures that certain rules and obligations must be met. As previously mentioned, we had the opportunity to have a tour of the plant led by Duane Guzzi, the Process Coordinator of the wastewater treatment plant. During the tour we learned valuable information that would help us for the success of our project. As our project deals with the extraction of metals from tailings ponds, going to a wastewater treatment plant was beneficial as we learned the procedures and methods they take to remove chemicals from water and make it safe for rivers.
The Wastewater Treatment Plant is licensed under the Alberta Government, which ensures that certain rules and obligations must be met. As previously mentioned, we had the opportunity to have a tour of the plant; this was led by Duane Guzzi, the Process Coordinator. During the tour, we learned about the procedures and methods that are taken to remove chemicals from water and make it safe for rivers. Surprisingly, we discovered a few similarities between our system and the plant’s. The plant processes bacteria in order for it to form into flocks and create a netting; then, it sinks to the bottom of the tank and is subsequently able to be removed easily.
Our project is very similar to this process, as we use phages that have inducible precipitation, in order for easy removal after metal ion capture. This tour also provided us with valuable knowledge on how we can integrate our system into the plant. Mr. Guzzi told us that our project could be integrated into the secondary clarifiers, to remove the metals that are contained within the wastewater. If our project was integrated into the secondary clarifiers, the metals that are contained in the wastewater could be removed before moving on to ultraviolet disinfection, where the microorganisms that are left in the water are disrupted and unable to reproduce and cause harm. This final product that is produced would then be able to be discharged into the river.
Lastly, the plant focuses on the environment in the procedures they carry out, as wastes such as methane that is produced from the plant will be transported to cogeneration motors where it will then provide heat and electricity for the plant. This ensures that the Wastewater Treatment Plant’s energy costs are low. This inspired us to turn our attention to the potential impacts our project could have on the environment-- how our project could be used to improve the efficiency of metal removal from wastewater, and how this could impact the dependent ecosystem as a result.
Our team had the opportunity of receiving a tour of the Wastewater Treatment Plant in Lethbridge. This plant was built in the early 1900s and it is a biological nutrient facility, which makes it belong to the top five percent of all the treatment plants in the world. The plant removes phosphorus,nitrogen, ammonia, total suspended solids, biochemical oxygen demand (pollution), as well as works to reduces fecal and total coliform. The wastewater treatment plant is licensed under the Alberta Government which ensures that certain rules and obligations must be met. As previously mentioned, we had the opportunity to have a tour of the plant led by Duane Guzzi, the Process Coordinator of the wastewater treatment plant. During the tour we learned valuable information that would help us for the success of our project. As our project deals with the extraction of metals from tailings ponds, going to a wastewater treatment plant was beneficial as we learned the procedures and methods they take to remove chemicals from water and make it safe for rivers. 