Fourth Mexican Snake Festival: Environmental Education and Cultural Preservation

Between July 19th and 20th, 2024, iGEM UAM collaborated with Herpetario Draconis Mx at Parque Ecológico Zacango during the 4th Mexican Snake Festival. The program was designed to promote environmental education, address public health concerns related to venomous animals, and preserve the cultural significance of serpents in Mexican history through interactive educational activities and informative talks.

The event combined lectures, sensory games, and participatory demonstrations, aiming to provide visitors with scientifically accurate information about venomous animals, particularly scorpions, while dispelling common myths and promoting ecosystem conservation awareness.

Event Context

The Mexican Snake Festival is a cultural celebration dedicated to the symbolic, biological, and mythological significance of reptiles in Mexican history. Serpents have been central to the cosmovision of indigenous peoples such as the Mexicas and Mayas. The festival seeks to revalorize the ecological role of snakes and preserve their historical and spiritual meaning through exhibitions, workshops, traditional dances, conferences, and community activities.

The event addresses environmental education to help the public understand the ecological function of snakes as pest controllers and essential components of Mexican biodiversity. It also tackles public health concerns by providing prevention education and appropriate response protocols for snake bites.

Activities Developed

The iGEM UAM team implemented several educational initiatives throughout the festival:

Informative Talks with Visual Materials Structured presentations accompanied by visual aids explaining venom composition, the biological purpose of scorpion venom, antivenom mechanisms of action, and prevention measures of scorpion sting poisoning. These talks provided visitors with adequate, updated, and scientifically supported information about pre-hospital care for stings, the nature of antivenoms and the importance of medical attention, the defensive rather than aggressive nature of scorpion venom, prevention strategies, and ecological importance. The sessions created space for dialogue, allowing participants to share experiences, concerns, and questions.

Molecular Antivenom and Immune System Board Game An educational game designed to demonstrate how antivenoms function at the molecular level. The activity helped visitors understand dynamically that antivenoms are not conventional medications and clarified the nature of envenomation, explaining why home remedies and other common practices are ineffective for treating venom exposure.

Scorpion Hunting Sensory Game An interactive sensory experience demonstrating how scorpions detect and hunt prey through stimuli such as vibrations, smell, and touch. The activity featured a sensory box designed to simulate a terrestrial environment with plastic animals, including both scorpion prey and predators that regulate scorpion populations. This game encouraged reflection on the ecological importance of scorpions as insect pest controllers.

Sensory Activity for Children Under 8 A complementary entertainment activity designed to engage young children with an entertaining stimulus while receiving age-appropriate talks about sting prevention.

Participants

The festival attracted more than 4,000 attendees of diverse ages, occupations, and belief systems from various states across Mexico. Visitors who interacted with the activities developed by the team expressed positive feedback regarding the information learned. The sessions generated spaces where people of different ages could ask questions, resolve concerns, and share personal experiences.

The team also presented their iGEM project and introduced the concept of synthetic biology, which generated significant interest among participants.

Event Development

Throughout the two-day festival, the iGEM UAM team maintained active stations where visitors could engage with multiple activities according to their interests and needs. Team members adapted their communication strategies to accommodate different age groups and educational backgrounds, ensuring accessibility and comprehension across diverse audiences.

A significant outcome of the event was establishing contact with Emanuel Rochín, a veterinary medicine specialist (Médico Veterinario Zootecnista). An exchange of knowledge occurred regarding antivenom production, and Dr. Rochín agreed to provide a recorded interview. In this interview, he emphasized the importance of having an adequate supply of antivenoms available for the veterinary sector, noting that a recombinant approach could readily provide this stock to veterinary and animal husbandry professionals.

Conclusion

The collaboration at the 4th Mexican Snake Festival provided the team with an opportunity to integrate public health education, environmental conservation awareness, and cultural preservation within a unified outreach framework. The event successfully reached thousands of visitors with scientifically accurate information while fostering dialogue about human-wildlife coexistence.

Through this initiative, iGEM UAM demonstrated the relevance of synthetic biology to real-world public health challenges, particularly in the development of recombinant antivenoms. The positive reception and meaningful conversations generated during the festival highlighted the importance of community-based science communication in promoting both ecological awareness and medical literacy.

The establishment of professional connections with veterinary specialists further validated the potential impact of the team's project and opened pathways for future collaboration between synthetic biology researchers and veterinary medicine professionals.