Team:UNESP Brazil/Education
BOARD GAME
In order for the population to get to know synthetic biology, our team developed a variation of the Clue game. In it, each player takes the position of a cell and must find out how the experiment was destroyed by collecting clues from other players. To win, the player must find out which cell destroyed the experiment, with which tool and in which laboratory. Thus, while playing, it is possible to learn about synthetic biology in a simple and relaxed way, attracting a wider audience to the field.
The game is available in Portugueseand English, and on our GitHubunder MIT license, so that anyone can download and play with friends.
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ELEMENTARY SCHOOL VISIT
In 2019, an elementary school visited the campus, around two classes with 30 students each. We divided them into three groups to explain about science and the activities carried out in the team's previous projects, Insubiota and Hope. The first group demonstrated how the green fluorescent protein (GFP) works, its applications and showed a GFP tube in black light. The second group played the Top Trumps Women in Science game developed by the 2018 team. Finally, the third group showed the low-cost bioreactor also created by the Hope team (2018).
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AWARENESS WEEK
Our team had a great desire to put into practice everything we could learn in theory about recycling e-waste, in addition to being able to contribute to reducing the impact that incorrect disposal could have. Then came the idea of carrying out a social action in the form of an awareness-raising week on the subject in partnership with the Jornada Farmacêutica da Unesp (JFU - Unesp's Pharmaceutical Journey).
We got in touch with Cooperativa Acácia, a cooperative of 180 recyclable material collectors whose core value is sustainability, and with the Hospital Psiquiátrico Espírita Cairbar Schutel (CASA Cairbar - Cairbar Schutel Psychiatric Hospital), which uses e-waste recycling as a means of social reintegration of patients. With their help, we were able to organize more than 10 collection points in the city of Araraquara for the collection of e-waste and also a drive-thru with the same objective. Considering the pandemic scenario, we saw these two methods as being the best ones to accomplish our idea and the distancing norms.
For the collection points, our team, together with the JFU, created and distributed posters containing the objects that would be accepted and we also placed the collection boxes. The drive-thru took place at the UNESP Chemistry Institute, and we gathered some members of both groups to carry out the activity. To publicize this social action we talked to local radios and newspapers, schools, and stores, in addition to virtual dissemination through social networks of other groups at the college.
The collection points were available from September 15th to 24th, after this period, Cooperativa Acácia and CASA Cairbar collected the objects for recycling. The drive-thru was carried out for 5 hours, obtaining more than 110 kg of e-waste - among them, objects that were at least 20 years old -, and all of the items were also collected by the Cooperative and CASA.
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