Introduction

UrbanTundra is a student-led research team comprised of students from several high schools across Edmonton. Back in 2016, we discovered iGEM at the annual Science Expo Youth Conference and hence, decided to form Edmonton’s first iGEM team to compete in the high school track! Fast forward to the 2016 Jamboree: our team presented research based on creating a system that could break down toxic perchlorate, enabling us to extract oxygen and break down the toxic molecule in the same process. We walked away from the 2016 Jamboree with the Bronze medal, as well as Best Poster, Best Presentation, and Best Wiki!

Team Story: Self-Improvement

At the beginning of 2017, we began recruiting new members for our team; in fact, the majority of our team is completely new! Unlike last year, we chose to expand our reaches to more than one high school, benefitting from the talents that Edmonton had to offer as a city. In June, we participated in our first conference, NDC, as the new UrbanTundra . Our team members communicated and collaborated with other science student groups, learning more about the different aspects that we could integrate into our own project. Through this experience, our newly-formed team not only bonded with one another, but we also learned about the objectives and nuances of the iGEM competition from the past members. Likewise, the judge’s feedback allowed us to assess our current situation, plan our next steps, and move forward as a team.

Based on the adjustments we made from the NDC conference, our leadership was adjusted and our team was portioned off into three sections: research, engineering, and outreach. These sections allowed us to not only work more effectively as a team, but also accomplish more in a shorter amount of time. Each member from a section was “buddied up” with two other members from the two other sections; this way, they were able to stay updated on the progress of the other teams.

Outreach and Collaborations

After having heard the opinions of several professors, researchers, and students in this field, we decided to base our outreach on educating the general public about synthetic biology and Mars colonization. We have presented at several elementary schools. The main purpose of these presentations was to educate kids about synthetic biology at an early age. We made a 15-minute, condensed and simplified overview of our project, including the way our bioreactor worked and what purposes our project had. As a team led by students, we believe fostering youth interest in STEM should be a key pillar to one’s goals. Although we will not likely be the generation to colonize Mars, we are as important, if not more, to establish the fundamental research and information vital to future Mars missions. We hope that our efforts as a student-driven research team will show that passion in the STEM fields pushes for innovation in our world.

Our team has communicated with several other teams, such as uAlberta , iGem Gifu and iGEM TEC CEM. Thank you for your collaboration and suggestions! We are also extremely thankful for the help and support we received from our mentor team, UAlberta , in our InterLab study. We would not be where we are today without their advice and aid.

We successfully conducted two major fundraising events: a bottle drive and Summer SYNBIO. For the bottle drive, our team was able to engage with various communities across Edmonton as we collected bottles, stopping to tell Edmontonians about our project and purpose. Our second fundraising event was a three-hour occasion with presentations, science workshops, and a silent auction. We wanted to engage our community in our project, educate the public about synthetic biology, and present the importance of science in general. We based our presentations on some of the concerns and suggestions presented through interviews of students and researchers on campus; expanding the perception of genetic modification as a means of programming rather than taking resources away from those on Earth. In order to host the silent auction, we asked local businesses for gift cards and promo items, and despite this having been our first time planning a silent auction, we managed to get in contact with over 50 local businesses. Without the gracious donations and support of various business, our event would not have been able to happen. We would like to thank everyone who attended the night of fun and engaging science presentations!