Team:Nevada/Outreach

What do most college students think about synthetic biology?
Over the course of the summer, we realized that while the general public might still have questions or concerns about synthetic biology and GMOs, we had the ability to educate students and make an impact at our own campus. We applied to present at the Nevada Student Speaker Competition - where presenters from our university could give a Ted-style talk on a topic of their choosing to an audience of over 300 students.

The video we submitted for entry into the competition was meant to explain an overview of our summer project:
Nevada iGEM NVSSC Entry Video

However, we used our presentation to provide an introduction to synthetic biology and the ethical implications of what we do as a scientist. We stressed the importance of being accountable for all that we do and using science to better society. We then provided a brief overview of our iGEM project to an audience of students from departments across campus. The presentation was well received and we were excited to be able to share with our fellow Nevada students!

How can we use synthetic biology to help create a sustainable Nevada?
Every year, The College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources at Nevada hosts a field day. The event is open to the public and designed to educate young and old on the technologies being developed at the university. This year's theme was “Feed the World. Protect the Planet" and all presenters/demonstrators were asked to focus on how their work could relate to drought, wildfires, nutrition, and local food production. Living in a desert region, we are all too familiar with the dangers of drought. Food production is also of great concern in regions of our country that do not have adequate growing land. After speaking and listening to talks from professors of plant biology at our university (Dr. Ian Wallace and Dr. John Cushman) we came up with some ideas on how synthetic biology could or already is being used to battle drough t and food production. We spoke about this at the Field Day and are continuing to learn about how we can use synthetic biology to create a sustainable world.