Our goal was not only to do a good job, but to make it so that other future teams can build upon. The main objective of our contributions is to help create a more diverse community involved in creating knowledge and technology. This, by creating tools that other iGEM teams can use to foster inclusion. Our contributions consists of an inclusive wiki manual, a 3D printed microcentrifuge and a project modeling manual. We hope that these materials can help other teams to promote the creation of an inclusive community.
It is important for all of us - as members of the iGEM and STEM communities - to recognize the importance of building an open and welcoming scientific community.
- iGEM's Diversity and Inclusion committee
Access to science and technology, especially synthetic biology, is and has been a privilege. In Mexico, only 7% of students graduating from high school choose a STEM career (Hernandez, 2018). One of the barriers to access science is the socioeconomic status. Schools with fewer resources don't have designated areas, such as laboratories, thus the possibility for students to engage in science are reduced (Taylor & Francis, 2020). We are aware that this not only happens in our country. Around the world, there are students who do not believe they are able to get involved in science because there are no resources to acquire laboratory materials. We saw an opportunity to promote access to science through the design of attainable laboratory equipment. It can also contribute to other teams and iGEM to help remove one of the biggest barriers to accessing science: socioeconomic status.
We designed an easily accessible microcentrifuge to support under-resourced educational institutions and make science more accessible to everyone. We used 3D printing technology to manufacture the mechanical parts, so this design can be applied by other teams. For example, when wanting to bring scientific activities to schools that do not have laboratory equipment, it is possible to use this microcentrifuge to bring a first approach to different people. Anyone interested can see a detailed description and the resources needed to replicate it on our Hardware page.
We want to include everyone into science. While presenting our project results we wanted to make information accessible for people with the most common visual disability: color blindness. Also, we wanted to make our wiki friendlier to people with neurodivergiencies such as ADHD and dyslexia (See our Inclusivity page to know more about it).
It is important to design the content we communicate from the perspective of our readers. And although it may not seem like it, these conditions are more common than we think. Approximately 8% of the population has some form of color blindness, 5% of the adult population has ADHD and 10% of the worldwide population are dyslexic (Wang et al., 2020; Ramos-Quiroga et al., 2014; Rello et al., 2015).
This means that out of every 100 people accessing the wiki at least 23 could have problems accessing the information if it is not presented properly.
This is why we worked on making our wiki content user-friendly. But why stop there? We would like everyone to be a part of this inclusion. Therefore we created and shared a manual on how to make an inclusive website. This way, future iGEMers can use it to design their own wiki. We also saw that a lot of the teams lacked experience on designing a website. This can be a great obstacle in the dissemination of the project, since the wiki is the primary repository of a team's work. Thus, we included another section to introduce beginners to this world.
If the manual is not displayed you can download it
Another tool we would like to leave for other teams is our dyslexia-friendly switch. We used the OpenDyslexic font to try to make information more accesible to a broader audience. The font is open source and free for anyone to use. Nonetheless, it still requires some time and coding for its implementation. We wanted to share the code we used so other teams can feel free to use it as well.
<html>
<body>
<style>
.oval {
width: 60px;
height: 35px;
border-radius: 40px;
}
.switchOn {
position: absolute;
left: 100%;
}
.switch {
position: relative;
display: inline-block;
width: 60px;
height: 34px;
}
.switch input {
opacity: 0;
width: 0;
height: 0;
}
.slider {
position: absolute;
cursor: pointer;
top: 0;
left: 0;
right: 0;
bottom: 0;
background-color: #ccc;
-webkit-transition: 0.4s;
transition: 0.4s;
}
.slider:before {
position: absolute;
content: "";
height: 26px;
width: 26px;
left: 4px;
bottom: 4px;
background-color: white;
-webkit-transition: 0.4s;
transition: 0.4s;
}
input:checked + .slider {
background-color: #b39600;
}
input:focus + .slider {
box-shadow: 0 0 1px #b39600;
}
input:checked + .slider:before {
-webkit-transform: translateX(26px);
-ms-transform: translateX(26px);
transform: translateX(26px);
}
.slider.round {
border-radius: 34px;
}
.slider.round:before {
border-radius: 50%;
}
</style>
<label class="switch">
<div class="oval" id="oval">
<input class="switchOn" type="checkbox" id="dyslexiaBt" />
<span class="slider round"></span>
</div>
</label>
<script>
function completeNav() {
//This function goes in the nav bar as 'onmousemove="completeNav()"'
if (window.localStorage.getItem("dyslexiaBool") == "true") {
document.getElementById("dyslexiaBt").checked = true;
document.head.style.fontFamily = "OpenDyslexic";
document.body.style.fontFamily = "OpenDyslexic";
document.getElementById("oval").style.background = "#B39600";
document.getElementById("dyslexiaBt").classList.add("switchOn");
} else {
document.getElementById("dyslexiaBt").checked = false;
document.head.style.fontFamily = "TrebuchetMS";
document.body.style.fontFamily = "TrebuchetMS";
document.getElementById("oval").style.background = "grey";
document.getElementById("dyslexiaBt").classList.remove("switchOn");
}
}
const dyslexiaBtn = document.getElementById("dyslexiaBt");
dyslexiaBtn.addEventListener("change", (e) => {
document.getElementById("dyslexiaBt").classList.toggle("switchOn");
if (e.target.checked === true) {
var isDyslexia = true;
window.localStorage.setItem("dyslexiaBool", isDyslexia);
console.log(window.localStorage.getItem("dyslexiaBool"));
document.head.style.fontFamily = "OpenDyslexic";
document.body.style.fontFamily = "OpenDyslexic";
document.getElementById("oval").style.background = "#B39600";
}
if (e.target.checked === false) {
var isDyslexia = false;
window.localStorage.setItem("dyslexiaBool", isDyslexia);
console.log(window.localStorage.getItem("dyslexiaBool"));
document.head.style.fontFamily = "TrebuchetMS";
document.body.style.fontFamily = "TrebuchetMS";
document.getElementById("oval").style.background = "grey";
}
});
</script>
</body>
</html>
When we started the development of our project, one of the first challenges we encountered was to model it. We felt that we didn't know where or how to start, and when talking with other iGEM teams we realized that we share the same thought.
To meet this challenge we did research, looked for ways to self-learn, asked experts, and supported each other among different iGEM teams. During this time we learned a lot. However, we didn't want that learning to stay just with us, we wanted to share it with future teams that may face the same challenges. This is how the idea of making a project modeling manual was born.
For this manual, we collaborated with two other teams: iGEM UAM and iGEM USP-EEL. With the sum of the knowledge of each team, and the knowledge that we developed together by working cooperatively, we sought to generate different approaches and perspectives about project modeling. We also wanted to make this information as accessible as possible, especially to Latin American teams. That's why we also made spanish and portuguese versions of our manual. You can check them out in the following button.
If you have problems viewing the document, try downloading it.
You can also try our manual in Spanish or Portuguese
Hernández, L. (2018). Falta de estudiantes de Ciencias y Tecnología en México preocupa a empleadores. El Financiero. Recuperado de: https://www. elfinanciero. com. mx/economia/falta-de-estudiantes-de-ciencias-y-tecnologia-en-mexico-preocupa-a-empleadores.
Ramos-Quiroga, J. A., Nasillo, V., Fernández-Aranda, F., & Casas, M. (2014). Addressing the lack of studies in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in adults. Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, 14(5), 553-567.
Rello, L., Ali, A., & Bigham, J. P. (2015). Dytective: toward a game to detect Dyslexia. In Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (pp. 307-308).
Taylor & Francis Group. (2020, February 26). 'Low' socioeconomic status is the biggest barrier to STEM participation. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 24, 2022 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200226171121.htm
Wang, Z., Liu, H., Pan, Y., & Mousas, C. (2020). Color Blindness Bartender: An Embodied VR Game Experience. 2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW).
