Weed Pulling
Partnering with Lethbridge’s own Helen Schuler Center, our team has volunteered at invasive plant species removal events in the city. At these events we were able to discuss our project with the other attendees and examine Spotted Knapweed up close. We discussed our project with many key city officials who expressed great interest in our project. Curtis Goodman, the head of Environment Lethbridge also offered any help if needed.
Advertising at the Lethbridge Farmer's Market
To help spread the word among those affected by Spotted Knapweed, we briefly maintained a stand at our local Farmer’s Market! The farmers’ market ran every Wednesday during the summer, and here we advertised our project and informed citizens about RNAi and the issue of invasive plants in Waterton. We set up posters and gave out flyers, and our farmers market experience was also a great way to engage with local businesses in Lethbridge.
Team Music Recital
To help raise funds for our project’s development, the musical members of our team and others came together to put on a recital. The recital consisted of musical performances from current and past Lethbridge HS Igem team members, and set up tables for snacks as well as our silent auction. We prepared for the recital weeks in advance, and a group of team members visited downtown businesses to collect donated items for our silent auction. We distributed informational pamphlets detailing our project, and during the recital, our team gave an extension presentation about our project and how it is relevant to agriculture in Southern Alberta. In the end, we raised a total of $700; a combination of entry donations and the money raised from our silent auction.
Highway Cleanup Our team participated in cleaning trash off our city's highways! This was to help the environment our project is meant to protect but also our initial attempts to observe any invasive species we could find!
Ethics Workshops Outside of work related to our iGEM project, our team has engaged in numerous ethics workshops run by team leader Linda He. In these workshops, we learned about what ethics were, different ethical perspectives such as utilitarianism about the world, and how different people viewed an ethical action. These workshops helped us expand our worldviews and examine our project procedures under numerous perspectives.
BioTreks Paper At the beginning of the year, our team wrote a detailed article about Knaptime is Over for Biotreks 6th issue. Not only was our first big project as a team, but it also made us consider aspects of the project more deeply. Such as how our project would affect different parts of the community, and how we would conduct testing in the future. Additionally, having an article published would allow us to spread awareness of our project's focus to a wider audience.
