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Team:Nevada/human practice
From 2012.igem.org
Human Practices
Helping Another Team
In the spirit of collaboration and continuing research that really characterizes iGEM, we helped the 2012 iGEM team from CU-Boulder with their project by providing them with our tobacco cell lines (NT-1 cells). We also gave them directions for growth and transformation of the cells. Another person contacted us and we worked with them on the ethanol genes from last year. The person ended up being a postdoc from India and not an iGEM team member.
The Importance of Education
Our team's various human practice projects aimed to introduce our project and synthetic biology in general to the public. Because we believe many of the controversies and concerns involving synthetic biology stem from a lack of education and discussion, and because we believe scientific awareness should be spread to all age groups, we tried to reach out to a diverse range of people at various events and through various media.
Bill Nye The Science Guy Science Expo
On September 6th, Bill Nye The Science Guy came to the University of Nevada to give a talk, and the University decided to host a science fair before the event. All clubs, teams, and organizations related to science were invited to bring a cool demonstration for the public. In addition to this being the official unveiling of our public iRICE poster and answering questions about our project, we set up our vitamin catching game and taught the public (mostly little kids and their parents) how iRICE could, dare we say it, CHANGE THE WORLD!
The Vitamin Catching Game
In our pursuit to help the public understand our project in a fun and simple way, we created a game that demonstrates how iRICE allows for the binding of vitamins to rice. Using only simple household items (a swimming noodle, velcro ball catchers, and a few tennis balls), we have created a giant rice grain that can hold onto our vitamin tennis balls.
College of Agriculture, Biotechnology, and Natural Resources Valley Road Field Day
On September 8th, Team Nevada presented their research to the public at the CABNR's Valley Road Field Day. Because this was a more family-oriented event, we had a kid-friendly interactive presentation in addition to our poster presentation. In order to teach children about cell biology and the roles of various organelles in the cell, we handed out "jello cells" and allowed the children to add their own "candy organelles" --after they learned the function of each organelle, of course.
A Survey of the Effects of Education on Attitudes Toward GM Rice and iRICE
One of our goals for our project was to see if people would be willing to eat iRICE. We decided to conduct a survey to get the public's opinions on iRICE as well as genetically modified rice. The format of the survey process began with basic demographic information and a quiz to see how much the person being surveyed knew about genetically modified golden rice. After this, participants were given an information sheet about Golden Rice, which contained basic scientific information as well as information about the pros and cons of golden rice. The rest of the questions were then about how comfortable participants would be eating golden rice, and whether or not they would prefer eating iRICE.
Click the previews below to view our survey and info sheet!
However, an interesting issue arose when we conducted our survey: regardless of how much people knew about golden rice originally, after learning more about it by reading our information sheet, the majority of people were willing to eat GM rice. In fact, most of them even said they would prefer it to our iRICE supplement! We believe this reveals a greater problem at hand. People's attitudes toward genetically modified organisms are related (at least in part) to how informed they are. Although participants were given a full information sheet about golden rice, very little information about our project was on the survey --and their opinions reflected this. Our survey actually turned out to be more beneficial as a teaching tool than a survey, and hopefully will contribute to the idea that the public needs to be kept in the loop as science advances forward.
An Open Forum on Genetically Modified Foods
After our Genetically Modified (GM) Rice Survey, we wanted to expand this project to be more of a two-way conversation. We plan to hold a series of public forums for members of our community to discuss their opinions on GMOs, starting with a group of young biochemistry students.
The University of Nevada offers an introductory course (BCH 110) for all biochemistry majors in order to familiarize freshman interested in the field with some of the opportunities, developments, and controversies involved in molecular biology. This class includes discussion-based "breakout" sections, which are led by upperclassmen biochemistry students (several of which are iGEM team members this year!).
The BCH 110 students previously participated in our GM Rice survey, so we were interested in talking to them about why they responded the way they did and how they personally felt about the GMO controversy. Overall, a majority of the students expressed an open-minded attitude toward GM foods. When we asked them why they thought many other people around the world viewed GM foods more negatively than they did, the students told us that their own attitudes were largely influenced by their personal education and interest in synthetic biology, and that the same things could change other people's minds as well.
Some quotes from the students about GM controversies:
"When people feel like they don’t have control over something, they feel uneasy about it."
"I think getting people to eat more GMOs would be like anything new. Couldn't we just have more news coverage about what it is?"
"I just don't see the point in having to label GMOs because I don't think we need to be afraid of them. It will cost a lot of money to do so, and taxpayers shouldn’t pay for that."
"The fear is the fear of not knowing, not a fear of the food itself. People just don’t have enough knowledge about it."
The Effects of GMO Food Labels
During the open forum with biochemistry students, we also conducted an experiment on the effects of one of the most hot-button issues in synthetic biology today, the labeling of GM foods. Before beginning discussion, students were told to help themselves to some cookies on the front table. Although they all actually came from the same bag, half of the cookies were labeled "Contains Genetically Modified Ingredients" and the other half were labeled "Non-Genetically Modified."
Surprisingly (and a bit comically), the students actually chose to eat more of the "GM" cookies, and more quickly.
After revealing the nature of the experiment, we asked the students why they chose the cookies they did, and overall, they once again surprised us by being incredibly open to GM foods in a time when many people are wary of them. Rather deterring the students, the possibility of the cookies containing GM products was actually more interesting to them.
Some quotes from the students about the labeling experiment:
"I chose one of each to see if they tasted different"
"I don't really care if it's GM, so I took one of those because they were closer to me"
In a future survey, we would like to isolate the pro non-GM candidates and ask them privately why they decided to pick non-GM. We would also like to conduct studies with an older generation that has not grown up with GM foods.
