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Team:UANL Mty-Mexico/Synthetic Tunnel
From 2013.igem.org
The Synthetic Biology (SynBio) Tunnel is a project to massively inform the crowd. We gave people of all ages accurate information to understand what SynBio is and how it is carried out. In about 90 minutes and across ten interactive modules, we covered topics from basic molecular biology to applications of SynBio and iGEM. Our objective is to educate people in order to promote a founded, critic judgment. Voilà a glance at the tunnel modules:
SynBio Tunnel Now! Back to top
Synthetic Biology Tunnel was our main Human Practices activity last year [Tunnel Activity 2012]. We got an audience of approximately 7, 000 people when we made our first edition of the Tunnel at our Biology School, our second at the Niños Héroes part of the National Week of Science and Technology of the Nuevo Leon's state and our third at the Montemorelos Autodromus, a city from our state. But for this year, we continued with this activity, reaching an audience of more than 1,000 people in two more editions: The CIDEB edition and the Special Cuatrociénegas Edition.
Cuatrociénegas Edition
Last year, we reached about 7,000 people in the exhibition we called Synthetic Biology Tunnel 2012 . This year we continued to grow as we went to a small town named Cuatrociénegas, Coahuila, a place known for its great metagenomic diversity, whose people we believe should be aware of what the treasure they possess. Synthetic Biology Tunnel 2013 was a great experience both for local people and for us.
CIDEB Edition
This year we also designed a new exhibition for all ages to explain the application of Synthetic Biology in the main Biotechnological areas: medical, industrial, genomics, environmental, agriculture and marine. The Genomics Biotechnology Roundabout was exposed in two editions where we caught the attention of more than 4,000 people of all ages.
The synthetic biology tunnel was on exposition on the 6th, 7th and 8th of December with the participation of 15 volunteers who promoted synthetic biology to all elementary, middle, and high schools in the community.
Since the Protection Area of Flora and Fauna of Cuatrociénegas is one of the most important regions of North America in preservation of biodiversity, we exposed how to promote the preservation of these areas through additional information about this region which was included in the Tunnel. The experience of this trip made stronger the team bonds of fellowship. Being this a great opportunity to coexist outside and within academia.
Figure 1. This mural was placed at the end of the Synthetic Tunnel exposition and it was a space were visitors were able to write about their experience in the exposition.
"Porque un día es muy poco, yo vine los 3..." ("Because one day it's not enough, I came the 3 days...")
"Me gusta mucho la biología :)" ("I like biology a lot.")
"Me encantó" ("I loved it.")
"Me gustó mucho el túnel espero volver otra vez". ("I liked the tunnel a lot I hope I can come back again.")
