Team:UrbanTundra Edmonton/Engagement
Engagement
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
Based on the adjustments we made
This year, our goal was to complete the first part of our biological system: expressing perchlorate reductase. We have been diligently working on designing a bioreactor where the planned biological extraction process can occur. Our project expands on the current knowledge available to address perchlorate contamination - not just on Mars, but on Earth as well. By constructing a system that reduces perchlorate biologically, we hope to expand the avenues available to deal with perchlorate contamination as well as contribute to research regarding this particular gene.
Human Practices
Our team contacted businesses and institutions involved in Mars expeditions, agriculture in rough conditions, perchlorate contamination, as well as environmental contamination in general. We had also been in contact with Astronaut Shawna Pandya, however, due to her busy schedule, we were unable to interview her.
Thanks to the generosity of staff, researchers, and students at the University of Alberta, we were able to ask for public opinions on the colonization of Mars.
Would you go to Mars as a first-wave colonist?
If I had some skill or use that I could contribute that nobody else could, then yes, I would probably go in the first wave. I think it’s very important for humanity to colonize Mars. If I was going as a tourist with others, however… then no.
Tyler Hrynyk, member of the AlbertaSAT team
My worries about that one-way trip to Mars is that you're attracting people who, conventionally, would be considered to have mental issues… if you’re coming and going, you want risk-takers, you want people who absolutely believe that they can handle any problem that faces them. But here, you’re saying that there’s a problem and there’s absolutely no way to fix it. If it was [a] one way [trip] and you were giving me sufficient technology to… set up a self-sustaining colony and be able to live out a normal life… that’s a different story than if you say, “we’re giving you food to survive on Mars for 8 months and then you’re going to die”... Guaranteed death versus a high-risk pastime; those are two completely different personalities… Risk can be appealing because it is challenging, but inevitable death… not so much.
Dr. Warren Gallen, PhD, Biological Sciences
A special thank you to Dr. Ross Lockwood who granted us an interview and took us on a tour around the University of Alberta! Dr.Lockwood holds a
What are your perspectives on the ethical implications of establishing a Mars colony?
The hardest part of human space colonization is humans. Honestly, it goes back to the idea that we, as a society, are risk-averse right now. The reality is that if you are sending people to Mars, you are setting them up in a situation that is risky, and for many reasons, it’s not just due to resource or psychological constraints; they have to get there; they’re got to cross interplanetary space, which hasn’t been done before; they’ve got to live with a significant light delay between planets, so that with any emergency that comes up, it means a minimum 20-40 minute contact with Earth. I did the HI-SEAS Mars stimulation, and we were well-versed in the fact that any time we had a problem, it would take a good 20-40 minutes in order to get information back to us. How do you deal with that? Or, if you’ve got a medical emergency, how do you deal with that immediately? And, the truth of the matter is that we’re talking about it today as if we’re leaving today, but we don't leave until 10-20 years, and by that time, we’ve got improvements in computer technology, hardware medicine, robotic medicine… So from an ethical perspective, you then have to talk about things like genetic engineering… anytime you talk about life, there’s going to be some ethical concern.
What you guys are doing is really interesting. You recognize that genetics and organisms behave like machines and they can be programmed with a genetic modification. I think that’s the perception that needs to grow. The fear is always going to be that we’re taking resources away from existing life, and the thing is that it’s not the goal. The goal is to create a machine that is a component in a recovery system.
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
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!
