By ALexa Funahashi, Lara Glendening, and Marilynn Hunt
The final project for my Sophomore year of STEM was to choose a world problem and try to find a biology or biotechnology solution to it. My group decided to solve the problem of oil spills. We designed a machine that would clean oily water in an environmentally friendly manner. After we finished our product, we presented it to a few representatives from local biotech companies.
Content
Alcanivorax borkumensis: oil-eating bacteria
(My group used this bacteria in our product.) Consumer: someone who buys a product (We needed to include who our consumers were in our presentation.) Competition: people in the same type of industry that target similar consumers (This term was also included in our presentation.) Maritime law: law that regulates and governs offenses in navigable waters nationally and internationally (We needed to consider maritime law because our product was a vessel of sorts and would need to be registered) Oil spill: the release of oil (liquid petroleum) into the environment (This was my group's world problem.) |
Reflection
I enjoyed this project a lot. What I liked most about it was the freedom to choose a problem we were passionate about. It made working on the project more engaging and interesting. There are some things that I thought went really well in our project, and some that need to be worked on. I think that our time management was very good. Our group finished with a couple class periods to practice presenting and to perfect our project. I also thought that our group was cooperative. All of us had an equal say in our project and it never felt like anyone's opinion mattered less or more. A few things we could work on is our productivity and going further. Even though we finished early, we would get distracted sometimes with phones, talking, or other things. We also probably could've gone a bit father with our project since we had the time. Overall I thought that this project was a lot of fun and very informative. Not only did I learn about my groups project, I got to learn about everyone else's. It was fascinating to hear everyone's solutions.