Hayley Todesco- Google Science Fair

[Music] my name is haley i'm 18 years old and from calgary in alberta canada i live with my family on the north hill of the city and from here i can see the school i went to the place i learned to skate and the amazing skyline when i was younger i watched a mind-blowing environmental documentary and since then i felt passionate about nature and the environment alberta's main industry is oil it has large natural deposits of oil mixed with sand and when the oil is extracted a huge volume of toxic waste known as tailings is

produced i came across some articles explaining how these tailings ponds giant lakes of toxic waste could last for centuries which makes them an environmental hazard i wanted to help by finding a way to break down the most toxic pollution in these ponds naphthenic acids i learned that the only thing that could survive in the tailings ponds was bacteria so i figured they must have some resistance to these acids that might help biodegrade them my approach was to design tabletop sand filters to grow these naturally occurring bacteria growing microorganisms on sand unlocks a bacteria super efficiency

that reduces acid concentrations accelerating the detoxification of oil sands waste i spent years researching sourcing preparing and building my experiment once my sand filters were ready i had to convert them into sterile bioreactors at my local lab i built 100 bioreactors and processed thousands of samples by hand and then the results emerged mice and bioreactors reduced the concentrations of naphthenic acids by 92 percent in just a week which meant the bacteria were breaking down the acids 14 times faster than normal to the point where i could reduce the detoxification period of tailings ponds from centuries

to decades the best bit is how cheap and easy these bioreactors are to build meaning we could start cleaning tailings ponds and help save the planet immediately i think i want to become an environmental scientist i see myself working in the biotechnology or environmental industry ultimately i just want to help mother nature clean itself [Music]