We can and got all of the stuff ready to use from our lab here! For biotic index and sampling we don’t need permission and the water is accessible in parc Leopold. Sampling can be part of the urban game, right @matteo_uguzzoni ? And then we can do more in depth analysis in your session @rachel
For the fishing itself I haven’t had the time to contact the autorities.
any chance of Levine or other selective media, in addition to ordinary LB, if microbial counts are done?
during the urban game, ’sterile’ conical tubes would be useful, to be labelled wherever we take a few samples, for use in analyses (plating, nitrates, etc - plankton, amoeba, algae)?
thx!
best,
Rachel
p.s.
if you know anyone with biosensor bacteria for volatile pollutants, you have to make sure to leave no air bubble, btw ! 
please don’t also forget the big micronuclei hunt(s)! on our cheek cells (tooth brushes to be provided, with AGiR! mini logo would be cool, huh??)!!
ciao for now, RA
I’m not fully up-to-date with what we have in the lab. @niekd is helping out with the experiments at the festival and better with this stuff. Can you pitch in?
Let’s make a list with stuff we need and then work towards gathering everything. I’ve made a spreadsheet here, please add everything you can think of: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bJF0GLmmx7s9SofkXFJ-MvSmD0eFPsWWUVDXIxZl8wQ/edit?usp=sharing
We should get a good overview by the end of next week, so we can order what’s missing or reach out to people to bring/support us with stuff.
put in a few things on the list…
just in case, here is a sheet like my old students used for calculating the ‘biotic index’ (indicating river health)…
Cool! Re-mineralizing? Haven’t heard about it. If you can get your hands on some, we can do some tests 
Okay! @matteo_uguzzoni does this fit in the urban game? Participants just need to have access to water, which they do in Parc Leopold
my cousin uses a sort of block charcoal water purifier, Best Water Filter for Drinking at Home | The Strategist but I don’t expect the one pictured here to affect microbial water quality, which is what I mainly thought we could test - more physico-chem things (chlorine, and maybe some metals, but maybe not heavy metals - they say the brita charcoal filters don’t help for lead or iron, for instance)… Maybe we could test for nitrates etc (we have some fish-tank kits reagents at Hackuarium) and pH?? (they talk about going alkaline in that Kishu review)
Actually, the head of the fundamental microbio dept here (at UNIL, Jan van der Meer) thinks using things like Brita filters is less good than just drinking ordinary tap water also because they could potentially provide a carbon source for bacterial growth!! (after all my years using them, I was not happy to hear this…)
if we don’t have real hooks, it is hard to see how they can call it really fishing…
in the rule page, I guess we would fit under article 10?? should we see if our date(s) are free first, on their calendar, before trying to put in an application? Maybe Hackuarium could be the non-profit requesting approval?
We’ve decided not to do the demo. Apart from the legal hurdles, there’s also the logistics and timing that make it hard to have a meaningful experience. Instead Alberto will show us his work and open a discussion on communication.
oohh! Well, Luc Henry is still involved (acting secretary for the association now), though very busy with his work with the new president of the epfl (who also seems very interesting). Can’t wait to hear more history and also about Gambiology…
Yep, the sampling part is in! So we have to remember to prepare the materials for the teams.
@rachel @niekd and I will prepare the petri plates that we will use for the analysis. What else should the teams have with them Rachel?
Hi! @niekd and @winnie
Thanks for making the petri plates for the water analyses!
If we have both LB and the Levine media plates, it will make for a more interesting analysis (the levine not only shows E.coli as metallic green, but prevents a bunch of gram+ from growing). Ideally, we will go off for the urban games with some clean tubes to collect samples, so we can use 3 independent tubes for each site. ( We usually just use conical tubes, but really we only plate 0.5ml per plate so that is overkill…) For negative control we can use tap water, and for positive controls I usually do a river water sample here, but maybe water from a WC is also ok (if people aren’t too grossed out!
When we get back and can do the plating we will need, besides the bunsen burner, a pipetter and tips to deliver 0.5ml per plate, and I usually use a bent glass rod to spread the sample over the plate surface. Then the plates get incubated at 37degrees…
For the actual main part of the workshop I just cut some foldscopes (planning to bring 7, and tell everyone how to do their own…), but the main activity was supposed to be the cheek cell micronuclei assay. For that I need microscope slides and cover slips and methylene blue solution (0.5% is a standard) - if we want to fix cells on slides, methanol could come in handy… (but I don’t want to get into adding iodine/acridine orange or other things like that in this workshop context). Again, pipetters and tips (p200, p20) could come in handy… For people that want to look at some of their own cells, we should tell them to bring toothbrushes!
If people want to look at moss life, also some extra plates, mineral water, and some droppers could be useful… Maybe this is a bit over-ambitious for 1.5h… more soon!
ok, back again…
3:1 (v:v) methanol:acetic acid is even better for the fix, if we want…
also, forgot to mention, saline solution for washing the cells off the toothbrushes, and conical tubes to let clumps settle out, and then microcentrifuge tubes and a microcentrifuge to concentrate cells. (usually I use a little beaker with 10ml saline solution to wash cells off from the toothbrush, then I pour this solution into a 15ml conical tube to let the big clumps settle away, and pellet the cells from about 8ml of the upper volume, with one final wash, and that is when I count the cells with the hemocytometer. then smears are made and slides air dried (optional fix after this) then I put on methylene blue and coverslips to look at them… Many extra details may still come to me!
just updated the list in the drive (DIY science material, should be DIT! 
the extra things I mentioned are now there, and I also added
gloves, glass waste container, scotch tape (for the Foldscope paper slides!)
Got some methylene blue powder in an eppendorf tube now, to bring with me, just in case you don’t find any easily!
Can you please make an official invitation with letterhead and signature that requests me to come to this event, just in case I get any trouble at the airport??? (@noemi Maybe that is for you to do?)
Thanks again for all the organisation! Looking forward!
Not sure if you got my last few notes, Winnie…
The google sheet of needed things is updated.
Also, I did get some methylene blue powder in an eppendorf tube now, to bring with me, just in case you don’t find any easily!
Can you please make an official invitation with letterhead and signature that requests me to come to this event, just in case I get any trouble at the airport??? (@noemi Maybe that is for you to do?)
Thanks again for all the organisation!
Looking forward!
Thanks for all the work Rachel, appreciate it! I saw your notes. I think we’re good with everything. We’re taking the missing stuff from ReaGent next week. Our stuff is in a garage and the owner is not there often. We’ve been trying to get a hold of them, so haven’t been able to confirm the materials 100%.
3 more useful items to have during the workshop would be a hot plate (to more quickly dry the smears), a light box for imaging, and some ethanol for slide cleaning. What is the space like? Will there be tables for people to work around (for instance, for the foldscopes) and benches for microfuge, slides and microscope(s)? Tell people to bring their DIY ones too (I have a simple lens you just stick on your phone somewhere…)!
have a nice weekend!