USD 500 microgrants available for workshops, short courses

General
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1. Your name, and that of your organisation (or the organisation that will receive funds on your behalf).

Nurul Izzati, Universitas Teknologi Sumbawa

Roudlotul Jannah, SynBio 101, iGEM Community

Sakti Subramanian, SynBio 101, iGEM Community

Richard Jiang, SynBio 101, iGEM Community

2. Name of event. Make another post with another event name if you have another event.

Hands-on workshop: Synthetic Biology application on plastic waste degradation

3. Email address by which you may be contacted.

Nurul - nurul.izzati@uts.ac.id

Jannah - rjannah.id@gmail.com

4. What open science hardware tool(s) will be the focus of your event?

  • Foldscope for microplastics and planktons observation of Brang Biji river water sample. The goal is to raise the awareness of the highschool students about the plastic waste effect on river water.
  • SynBio 101 kit and modules for synthetic biology technique introduction. The high school students will be given the opportunity to learn about synthetic biology in tackling the plastic pollution problem. They will also get the opportunity to experience the lab work using the kit.

5. Describe your course or workshop, whom and what it is for, where and when it will be held, how many attendees (IRL or virtual) you expect.

Samota or Saleh, Moyo, and Tambora have been appointed by UNESCO as one of the biosphere reserves in 2018 that is located in Sumbawa region, West Nusa Tenggara. It requires effort from the government and the local people in preserving the biosphere. However, the poor plastic waste management has been one of the biggest problems in the preservation. The lack of awareness of people about the plastic waste management is one of the contributing factors of plastic accumulation in the environment such as found in Brang Biji river that will end up in Sumbawa coastline.

Therefore, the Faculty of Life Science and Technology, Universitas Teknologi Sumbawa intend to raise the awareness of plastic waste to the local community starting with high school students through hands-on workshops and river clean up in collaboration with SynBio 101, Synbio.id, and Foldscope Network ID. There will be 50 high school and 25 undergraduate students participating in this event that will be held on 3-6 May 2023 at Universitas Teknologi Sumbawa and Brang Biji river. The students will have the opportunity to observe microplastic in the river water using Foldscope as they learn the importance of minimising the plastic usage on a daily basis. This activity will be followed by river cleaning around the Brang Biji river stream and introduction of synthetic biology application on plastic waste degradation. The students will also get the opportunity to try the SynBio 101 kits and get familiarised with the synthetic biology application.

6. Do you have plans for ongoing activities after this event OR is it intended that the participants will continue activities after this event? If so, describe the intentions and plans here.

SynBio 101 and Synbio.id are planning to do similar events collaborating with other institutions from other cities in Indonesia. In the near future, possible collaboration will be done with SynBio UB (synthetic biology community in Brawijaya University) that is currently trying to establish a synthetic biology community. We are also planning to reach out and collaborate with the local organisations that are concerned about plastic waste that have regular programs in giving education about waste management to the local communities. The target audience will be high school students that will be given the opportunity to observe river water with Foldscope and learn synthetic biology from the modules and kits.

7. What event outputs (e.g. teaching materials, curricula, software, etc.) will you make available? Will these outputs carry an open licence?

The students will be introduced to the main problem, plastic pollution in the Brang Biji river on day 1. The activity is followed by the water sampling from the river and observation using Foldscope on day 2. They will create a poster about their findings and present it on day 3 that is continued with an introduction about synthetic biology using the SynBio 101 kit and module.

SynBio 101 will develop a module and kit for the workshop. These materials are part of SynBio 101 open hardware project creation that will be distributed to students. For this event, the modules and kits are customised to fit the goal and schedule of the workshop.

Details:

The instructional modules include:

  1. Introduction to Synthetic Biology
  2. Introduction to Plasmids and Circuits
  3. Introduction to Viruses and Phages
  4. Concerns about Biotechnology
  5. Biosecurity and Biosafety

The modules hardware (H) workshops include:

  1. Gel Electrophoresis (H)
  2. Cell and Plasmid Preparation (H)
  3. Transformation Protocols (H)
  4. Polymerase Chain Reaction (H)

Example of Past Implementation (Modified Scope):

8. What you will use the grant for, roughly.

The grant will be used on kit production (containing the modules). We will produce 10 kits that will be used by the participants (in groups) with each kit costing approximately 50 USD to manufacture. In total, we will need 500 USD to produce the kits.

9. Provide links (references) to documentation or reviews of similar events or works you have executed. School coursework or projects can be listed, even social media posts. Anything to give a sense of what you’re about and your ability to successfully conduct this course or workshop. To keep this short, just the links and their descriptions will do.

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