Team:Rock Ridge Virginia/Practices
Human Practices
iGEM teams are unique and leading the field because they "go beyond the lab" to imagine their projects in a social/environmental context, to better understand issues that might influence the design and use of their technologies.
Teams work with students and advisors from the humanities and social sciences to explore topics concerning ethical, legal, social, economic, safety or security issues related to their work. Consideration of these Human Practices is crucial for building safe and sustainable projects that serve the public interest.
For more information, please see the Practices Hub.
Rock Ridge iGEM Human Practices in Education and Public Engagement
In order to encourage the youth in the Northern Virginia area to consider pursuing STEM careers, our team will be visiting local schools of all levels. At these events, we will present our projects as well as demonstrate different experiments that are related to synthetic biology. We will also lead the discussion on the benefits and problems with this technology, while also organizing a science exhibition for students that live in our area, which will be used as an opportunity to explain our project. Through this, we hope to gather support from the community. At this event, students will able to make their own take-home science projects, play around with advanced technology, and participate in many more fun and engaging activities. Our plan is also to visit different high schools in our area and surrounding counties, through which we hope to instill a passion of iGEM in order to entice them to join in the near future. If they do, we will help them with our knowledge, equipment and experience for the competition.