Biosphere Chat

Environmental Science students hosted a virtual meeting on Thursday with Taber MacCallum, a member of the historical Biosphere 2 team. Over 30 years ago, Mr. MacCallum and seven other team members accepted the challenge of living in what they hoped would be a self-sustaining 3+ acre terrarium for two years. The students studied the results of the Biosphere 2 experiment, and discussed both the science and psychology of the experience with their guest. Their questions related to managing the different ecosystems set up in the space, discovering the absorption of carbon dioxide by the concrete in the structure, assessing the implications of their results for NASA's proposed bases on the moon and other planets, brainstorming solutions to the problems the group encountered, and handling the isolation and limitations of the tiny society. The juniors and seniors in the class are designing and constructing their own microbiomes in the classroom to monitor biotic and abiotic needs of ecosystems, and while they are working on a much smaller scale, they are facing some of the same challenges with controlling environmental factors that Mr. MacCallum and his team encountered.