Team:Ecuador/Communication
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Integrated Human Practices
Communication
Education & Public Engagement
Inclusivity
Sustainable Development Impact
Entrepreneurship
COMMUNICATION
We believe that science communication and education is a right that opens many doors to the development of a society. We work for synthetic biology and biotechnology to be widely disseminated through dialogues, debates, workshops, puppet shows, stories, infographics, etc.
In our country, there are several prohibitions in the area of research, which arise from lack of information. For this reason, we put much of our effort in bringing science to indigenous communities that are the main providers of ancestral resources, which in turn, are the basis of scientific research.
Want to learn more? Visit the Education and Public Engagement. .
Hardware
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Benjamin Franklin
This is and will be the premise that Igem Ecuador wants to contribute in the long term. Our project encompasses our enormous interest in the democratization of knowledge in all sectors, and especially in those where educational resources are limited. Unfortunately, this is a latent reality throughout the world, and Ecuador is an example of this.
Visiting Nazacota Puento Town, Cotacachi-Ecuador.
Our desire to share Synthetic Biology led us to socialize our own experiences as young scientists, using the tools at our disposal, to encourage teenagers between 15, 16, and 17 to be passionate about science. To achieve this, we developed activities based on Synthetic Biologies such as DNA extraction, restriction enzymes, and microorganism culture.
During the lectures we observed colonies of transformed fluorescent bacteria with the help of our transilluminator, which has been built with a few tools and has valuable features such as being versatile, its design can be assembled and disassembled with great ease, and it is easy to transport due to its lightweight and small dimensions. It also has a simple and intuitive way of handling it.
In this way we will continue to visit even the most remote communities of Ecuador and thus continue to share our learning with the youth, sowing questions and love for learning since we fervently believe that example is the best teaching method. The design of our transilluminator is open source and available at https://2021.igem.org/Team:Ecuador/Hardware#ref9 so that all people who may need one and do not have the resources to purchase such a device , as in many of the cases of students, teachers, researchers, and others, can build one from home.
Infographics in social networks
Social networks have made it possible to bring science to many people. This is important because fake news abound in these spaces. This problem became even more apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of this, at iGEM Ecuador we set out to develop infographics that combat misinformation and also contribute to expanding knowledge about synthetic biology.
From 19 March 2020 until 6 September 2020 we published science posts daily. It was a challenge because sharing science is not just about copying and pasting. We make sure that the content we publish is verified. Another difficulty we overcame is to accompany the information with a reader-friendly design.
We also aim to familiarise our audience with iGEM and synthetic biology. To this end, we made posts about some representative projects that have gone through the competition. Many people wrote to us to let us know that they found the projects interesting and we thought that some of them felt a spark of curiosity about science
