Community and education are essential to the nitrate neutralizer bioremediation system developed by our team. The core of the project is based on using a genetic construct to accumulate and remove excess nitrogen from water. With this in mind, we strove to create a system that could be used by anyone. Our design was built around being portable and efficient solution that once placed in the Chesapeake Bay would start uptake of nitrates!
To translate these same principles to educational outreach, our team reached out to younger audiences. We taught them the concepts of engineering and synthetic biology and how they can be used to solve real-world problems. Moreover, we reached out to an elementary school and presented our project along with concepts of STEM to second graders. Our audience had a limited understanding of what nitrate pollution is, so we created a storybook to interact with and explain these concepts better. We hope that these small lessons and activities can inspire younger audiences to explore and think about how technology can be used to fix everyday problems.
Below is the presentation we used to explain Chesapeake Bay conservation to students!
Our Storybook