Showcasing young scientists
Four students from P.E.I. selected to represent the province at national event
Dhairya Purbia, a Grade 10 student from Colonel Gray High School in Charlottetown has created a project that generates electricity by burning waste.
His project is part of the 2024 P.E.I. Science Fair which saw more than 125 young scientists from across 21 P.E.I. schools showcasing their creativity. The event was held at the Eastlink Centre in Charlottetown on April 9. Students from grades 4-10 showcased their projects with some competing to represent the province at the national science fair.
Dhairya decided to make his project focus on waste management after noticing its impact on the climate. His projects, waste wonders, aim to turn waste into something beneficial.
“I came up with this idea because waste is a very big problem in our world. And it leads to many other problems like global warming, pollution of air, soil pollution which is too much for our world.”
The waste is put into a tunnel made out of net and it is set on fire, as it burns, it produces heat, the heat then powers the electrical bulbs connected to it.
Dhairya said he wants his project to inspire people to adopt the exemplary waste management practices of Japan and Singapore, two countries that are renowned for their effective waste management systems.
THE ROOT
OF THE PROBLEM
Leila Djelouah and Charlotte Campbell, Grade 8 students East Wiltshire Intermediate, experimented with crop cycles as a replacement for costly fertilizers.
They observed that the increasing prices of fertilizers had an adverse effect on farmers' profits, especially with inflation.
Their project, the root of the problem, aimed to test whether crop cycles could substitute fertilizers and reduce the need to import fertilizers from overseas, thereby reducing carbon emissions from transportation.
To conduct the experiment, they planted tomatoes, beets, spinach and radishes in separate bins. Once the plants had grown, they removed them and planted arugula in each bin, including one extra bin with plain potting soil. They collected samples of the plain potting soil and the soil from the previous four plants. Then, they waited for the arugula to finish growing so they could compare how well each plant grew with the different types of soil.
“When we got our samples, we saw some really interesting results. Some of the changes in the soil were really big. For instance, our biggest change added 446 per cent of the original chloride levels than the original soil. Which was really surprising because we didn't think that there would be any reason that the chloride went up, but it did. That was beets, they added that,” Charlotte said.
“And another really big one was spinach, and beets added a lot of nitrates to the soil. Which was really interesting, because they actually got the nitrogen from the air to add it to the soil.”
Their experiment showed that certain plants can add nutrients to soil which they believe is a healthier alternative to applying fertilizers.
NATIONALS
Their project was selected, and they were chosen to represent P.E.I. in nationals alongside two other students.
They will attend the Canada-wide Science Fair in Ottawa in May, where more than $1 million in prizes and scholarships will be awarded.
She said it came as a shock to her.
“We really didn't think that we were going to go. We were really surprised and we're really grateful to be able to go.”
Cindy Ramsey, co-chair of the science fair committee, said she was amazed to see the work that all the students put in.
“I am very impressed. The caliber of the projects every year, it just amazes me,” she said.
“It's great. When you see the students come one year, then go home better the project that they had, or they might have gathered another piece of information or another idea that they wanted to elaborate on so it's always nice to see that.”