Becoming a Biomedical Scientist
Biology, History, Language Arts
& Wellness
The field of biomedical sciences has always fascinated me. The field has the ability to impact our daily lives. From developing medical procedures to vaccines, biomedical sciences protects us. When I become a researcher in the near future, I will need the ability to aptly identify a problem and share this information that I have acquired with others. I was able to further develop this skill through the “Food Insecurity Project." This was a project for us to become aware of the hunger insecurity that exists in our local area. At a larger scale, we can see that hunger is a global issue. It is disheartening to think that hunger is being used as a weapon. While there is food going to waste, children are dying due to starvation. This project's purpose was to devise a system of reducing food insecurity at a local or global scale.
The first step was to identify the problems surrounding food insecurity. As a group we came together to brainstorm ideas that would systematically solve the biggest issues regarding food insecurity. From this list you can see that the main problems that we identified regarded lack of transportation among low income families. We also researched the extravagance food waste that some countries have while other countries are suffering. We then moved on to viable solutions that would solve such issues. We initially thought about a grocery truck that would go to schools allowing students to pick up whatever foods they need. We wanted to expand our solution to a global scale which is when we brainstormed additional ideas. Farms produce a large amount of food waste; we wanted to collect this food, dehydrate it for preservation, and then repackage it for distribution in location that food is needed.
We performed a series of tests to research various methods of dehydrating food. The two methods included sun-drying as well as freeze-drying the foods. After putting a variety of fruits through these processes we tested for Vitamin C content to determine which method was better for preservation of nutrients. When I become a researcher, I will need the ability to display information to communicate ideas. To compare the Vitamin C content we put the test strips on display to share with others. Here you can see the results that we developed. We saw that the incubator method of dehydrating the fruits performed the best with storing Vitamin C.
At the end, we gave a presentation discussing our proposed idea. The last step in the process was to formulate resources for presenting our solution. Through this PowerPoint, you can see that we pointed out important details in a specific order to effectively communicate with the audience. The presentation starts with identifying the problem and then moves into explaining the background information of current solutions that already exist. We then go through the steps of the proposed solution with the method we used to test the validity of our solution. Through the preparation of this presentation, I understood the importance of including key details that would clearly explain the idea that we are trying to get across.
