---
title: Biology & Agri Zero
page_type: course
track:
course_type:
feature_img: /assets/images/2020-21/t-1/bio-agri-zero.jpg
img_caption: 
faculty: 
    - nuria-conde
    - jonathan-minchin
    - anastasia-pistofidou
---

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## Syllabus

The recent growth of the international DIY-Bio / I-GEM and Bio Hackers networks are born of a motivation to narrow the golf between research conducted in institutional and corporate settings and to redirect the scientific locus back towards citizen scientists. The agenda of democratizing access to the sciences is shared with that of libre software and open-source electronics and maker movements.

Access to the means experimentation for the investigative and applied sciences will not only change the way we understand and describe the world but also bring forth new knowledge, designs, and engineering practices previously constrained to larger-scale operations. Through the course, researchers will learn how to identify microorganisms, how to take samples and prepare cultivation media, how to observe microscopic organisms and to obtain amplify DNA and analyze it. Researchers will be introduced t scientific concepts such as sterility, metabolism, genome, synthetic biology, biochemistry, and microbiology. Gaining the ability to make creative decisions and construct logical frameworks for study and production in the field of biology.

'Consumer culture' portrays itself as the provider of instant access to any commodities we could want, from anywhere in the world, at an affordable price.

This discourse, detached from the material process of production of these commodities (e.g. textiles/minerals/meat/pornography/plastics) invisibilizes the difficult truths intrinsic to their production. The sites of production are conveniently 'elsewhere' than the global north which reaps the rewards of this eco-social devastation.

While a superficial 'awareness' of the social and ecological impact is readily provided by this same culture there is an absence of concrete and viable actions informed by material reality that do not lend themselves to become similarly commodified themselves.

Through practice comes knowledge, by working directly with materials to understand the skills, energy, resources, chemistry, economics and human labor underpinning their production we can begin to envision alternative approaches to organizing production.

'Material Craftivism' is a practice-based approach to material research and knowledge exchange with the aim of developing and supporting alternative frameworks of production and consumption.

We want to create a society of material makers, where open recipes are shared and democratised, enabling practitioners to design the performance, the aesthetical qualities, the properties and the life cycle of products, services and platforms.

## Deliverables

- Students will design and hand-in their own notebooks in an innovative research fashion.

- A designed experiment following scientific methods will also be delivered.


The participants will need to handout:

1- A booklet (pdf) documenting:

a. Their home apparatuses set up (tools and appliances)

b. The different recipes they create

c. A concept idea of a product, service, or platform on biobased solutions.

2- Create a collaborative material catalogue of physical samples together with their classmates.

## Additional Resources

(https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Church_(geneticist)&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1631873659860000&usg=AOvVaw008k0z0BmW9hnP6xicbWwh)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kc0IFavUes)

(http://biohackacademy.github.io/)

(https://igem.org/)

(https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gz7h1kExAhIV86wyzHpb3gF9YU5SvABP/view)

(https://drive.google.com/file/d/18JlJtiFxO17JpmPP_LGrtM2DB8NDsebS/view)

(https://drive.google.com/file/d/1srtlXcN2LyFnps7lP28i-NMMmx0A_srw/view)

## Faculty

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