Team:Goettingen/Human Practices
Team Göttingen
iGEM 2018
Glyphosate on my plate?
| E-mail: | igem2018@gwdg.de |
|---|---|
| Adress: | c/o iGEM 2018 |
| Department of General Microbiology | |
| Grisebachstraße 8 | |
| 37077 Göttingen | |
| Germany |
We are especially grateful to our numerous sponsors on gofundme, who supported our project and made it possible.
Every public donor, who helped us to achieve our goals got a special place on our bacterial wall of fame and a handdrawn microbe to show our appreciation. A link to that wall can be found here:
08.02.18
Panel Diskussion: Fritz Günzler: „Glyphosat – Wundermittel oder gefährliches Pflanzengift“?
Early on in our project we tried to find a suitable topic. Glyphosate was one of the candidates we wanted to work with. To get additional information about the herbicide, to understand the opinion of the general public and politicians and to get an overview of the magnitude of the controversial discussion, we participated in a public panel discussion hosted by the politician Fritz Günzler, named Glyphosate – miracle cure or dangerous plant toxins? Soon it became apparent, that this question is not easily answered, and a heated discussion arose between politicians and the audience. On the one hand, farmers rely on the very efficient herbicide to produce sufficient amount of food, while on the other hand, the long-term effects of glyphosate are debated as well as the ever-present suspicion of it being cancerogenic. We soon realized, that due to this heated climate in the community, more independent research on the topic is necessary and we prompt decided that this was our topic of choice. If you want to know more about the scientific background of glyphosate click here: http//linkschmink.
13.04.18
Bringing our project to young students
One of the most important things in science is its educational aspect. We want to keep the public informed about our project to get constant feedback which we try to directly implement into our project design. We especially want to raise awareness in young children to get them involved and wake their passion for science early on in life. Therefore, our team member Veronika went to the Staatliche Chiemsee Realschule to present our project to young students and show them the everyday life of scientists. At this point, we already realized that even though Glyphosate is such a prominent topic in the media, the public and especially young people lack a certain, objective and scientific background. Informing the public in an objective and scientific way is one issue that we want to tackle during our project.
14.04.18
International March of Science 2018
The march of Science is an international mass rally to promote the value of research and science and to demonstrate “against alternative facts”. In our case we felt obliged to take part as the herbicide glyphosate is hugely discussed in the media and several studies have been shown to be incorrect or poorly carried out. If you want to know what studies and newspaper have to say about the glyphosate controversy, follow this link: http://linkschmink. Different representatives from the fields of science, politics and society debated and allowed the audience to participate in the discussion. https://marchforscience.de/presse-info/