Team:Alberta/Outreach

Outreach: Consort, Alberta

As a part of our efforts to reach out to the local scientific community iGEM Alberta send one of our team members to the small town of Consort, Alberta to assist their emerging high school iGEM team. Consort is a town of about 700 people located east of Red Deer near the border with Saskatchewan and only has one secondary school. Remarkably students from this small town high school caught wind of the iGEM competition and decided to get involved. Their seclusion however was the source of several problems. The Consort team lacked the proper equipment, materials, and training to realize their goal of competing in iGEM. After hearing of their difficulties Mark Rozema travelled to the small town to lend his assistance. Mark, a recent graduate, was able to provide much needed materials such as ligase, buffer, and restriction enzymes. He also gave helpful suggestions to improve their presentation and delivery and helped develop their safety component and abstract. We were thrilled to be able to help a local high school iGEM team and look forward to future partnership with the Consort iGEM team.

Consort, AB is a small town of about 700 people with one secondary school for its 70 high school students.

The students practice their presentation in front of their parents and an Alberta iGEM team member, Mark Rozema.

Consort, AB is located several hours from both Edmonton and Calgary. Having little access to any major biochemistry labs proved to be challenging for the team.

Images Courtesy of:
http://genomealberta.ca/blogs/university-of-alberta-igem-team-pitches-in-to-help-team-fromconsort.aspx
https://maps.google.ca
http://www.consort.ca/