Our first aspect of human practices included reaching out to a variety of professionals and people in our community to gain a better overall understanding of our project and its reach. Our project helps mitigate several of the harmful causes of coral bleaching. The stakeholders in our project included people in our local community who frequently visit the beach, marine life research scientists, and researchers specializing in the use of oxybenzone. We reached out to many different people in effort to grasp a greater understanding of oxybenzone, what is already known, and feedback on how to combat it.
In the first part of our human practices, we created a survey, which included questions about coral bleaching, the impacts of the oxybenzone, and the usage of it. This survey was meant to assess how many people in our community were truly aware of the harmful impacts of a seemingly insignificant sunscreen ingredient. This was especially important to us as we do live in the coastal city of San Diego, making the beach a frequent place for both locals and tourists to visit. (Further explained on our survey page)
In the second part of our human practices, we reached out to various environmentalists and research professors in the field of marine biology to gain a better grasp on how oxybenzone is combatted today, and how our project may contribute to this. After talking with them, we gained more insight on how coral reefs are prone to bleaching, and its negative effects on the ecosystem. In addition, we were able to understand the extent to which coral reefs aid marine life, thus supporting the importance of our project. We interviewed four experts and discussed our project with them, getting feedback on how to better improve our project and make it more accessible for public use. (Further explained on our outreach/education page)
All in all, through human practices, we hoped to advocate for the health of coral reefs by informing the people in our community, and make a difference for their ecosystems.
The results of our oxybenzone awareness survey indicated that the general high school population was aware of oxybenzone, but not very knowledgeable about it. The level of “Not sure” answers was significant. Questions that were really demonstrative of this trend included:
“In how many U.S. states is oxybenzone banned?” The correct response was only one state: Hawaii (banned the sale and distribution of oxybenzone products in 2018). However, less than 10% of respondents answered correctly, with almost 70% indicating “not sure.” While most people had some awareness about oxybenzone in sunscreen, they were clearly not aware of oxybenzone regulation.
“True or false: oxybenzone is FDA approved” The correct response was true, however only 34% of respondents answered correctly, while almost half were not sure.
The answer statistics indicated to us that the general population still lacks basic knowledge on oxybenzone, a problem that we took upon ourselves to remedy through outreach on social media, and an in-person beach survey.
After looking at the results of our oxybenzone awareness survey, we decided to release the correct answers to all our questions through an instagram series. Instagram is a popular social media app among high schoolers. By utilizing social media, we could reach out to a larger number of people. We had members of our team each design a few posts, adding some important facts to elaborate on each of the correct answers to our survey.
To see how informed the public was about oxybenzone, we decided to take a trip to where our project would be the most relevant– the beach. Our team split into two groups to ask beachgoers at Seagrove Park in Del Mar, California about their sunscreen habits and assess general knowledge about oxybenzone. Respondents came from a more diverse group than our survey, which mainly received high school responses. Members of the public were generally very engaged and interested in our information. Almost all were either wearing sunscreen or regularly used it, but most indicated they did not put a lot into consideration when buying sunscreen. Many were already using oxybenzone-free products when we checked, and a few had prior knowledge about oxybenzone. Almost all were surprised to learn about the full extent of oxybenzone’s effects on the human body, and indicated they would take the information into consideration when using sunscreen in the future.
Our interactions with the public at Seagrove Park were encouraging, as the public's interest in our message showed that they were receptive to adjusting their sunscreen habits. Another good sign was that the sunscreen products that many people had been using were already mineral sunscreens, or labeled oxybenzone free. We found that the public still lacked important knowledge on oxybenzone’s effects on humans, which seemed to surprise many.
| Dr. Lorraine Ling | Dr. Ling, a scientist at SyntheX, Inc., helped us understand the toxic effects of oxybenzone in coral reefs. She also helped to evaluate the novelty of our idea and its possible applications. Dr. Ling was one of the authors of a study that greatly contributed to our research ideas. She helped greatly in the core formation of our project solution. |
| Dr. Ariel Levine | Dr. Levine works in the Department of Geography at San Diego State University. She has been tremendously helpful in helping us understand the current awareness of the community regarding oxybenzone and its harms. |
| Dr. Mark Pellet | Dr. Pellett, Senior Director and Group Manager, Regulatory CMC at AstraZeneca, helped us go through our project ideas and discussed each with his pharmaceutical perspective and prior research on oxybenzone. |
| Dr. Meng Yuan | Dr. Yuan studies structural biology, protein science, and molecular virology at Scripps Research Translational Institute. He helped us with modeling, specifically with PyMol and molecular docking. |