Science fairs used to be about exploding volcanoes and lemon clocks.
Sandra Dusolt has taken things to a whole new level, creating a bio-filter that cleans the filthiest water on the planet, ultimately making it potable enough for human consumption.
Along the way she used her scientific ingenuity to build a solar-panel to power the filter, and if that wasn’t enough, used the algae that grew in the filter to create bio-diesel fuel.
That’s one smart teenager.
Her efforts won gold at last week’s Canada Wide Science Fair in Toronto and earned the 16-year-old Churchill Collegiate and Vocational Institute Grade 11 student an invite to the Global Youth Science Fair in Slovakia later this summer.
A native of Thailand, who saw firsthand the destruction caused by the improper disposal of sewage, Dusolt said she wanted to create a project that could make a difference in third-world countries.
The judges agreed she’d achieved her goal, she said.
“They were just really impressed with all the things I could do with just one project and they really liked the idea that I could use it in different places around the world, and not just here,” she said on Wednesday morning at her school.
Dusolt sees plenty of applications for the project, which she refined over the course of putting it together, finding a way to cut the cost from more than $1,000 to about $100, vastly increasing its affordability in countries where $100 represents a significant amount of money.
“I think that most people in third-world countries will be able to buy something like this and be able to use it,” she said.
In layman’s term, water is pumped through the bio-filter from the bottom to the top, and is then pushed through a second series of filters, including sand, rock, plants and soil.
Dusolt , enrolled in Churchill’s International Baccalaureate program, said she tested three different samples of water – well water, grey water, which had detergent in it, and sewage.
She tested the samples for seven days, then compared them.
“I tested for e.coli, general coliforms, phosphorous, ammonia and PH levels. The PH remained around seven, which is where it should be around. E. coli and general coliforms started out really high, but by the end of going through these bio-filters they were really low numbers.
“But it wasn’t totally gone yet. The ammonia phosphates decreased a lot throughout the seven days, to the point where they were almost gone,” she said.
The water still had a brown tint, due to harmless tannins.
“To remove the tannins I used an activated carbon filter and also added a tiny bit of bleach in the water to get rid of the colour.”
Then, to prove her hypothesis, she drank the water.
Susan Heald, who advised Dusolt on her project, said the youngster found a project that meant something to her, and from there it was her own energy and enthusiasm that powered her to top spot in Toronto.
“You see a lot of that in these kids. They have an intrinsic motivation to do this. You don’t produce a project like that without having intrinsic motivation,” Heald said.
Duslot won $1,500 cash for top spot and a $4,000 to $5,000 scholarship at one of several Canadian Universities, including Dalhousie, the University of British Columbia, the University of Manitoba, the University of Ottawa and the University of Western Ontario.
Dusolt wasn’t the only Churchill student to win a medal at the competition.
Moriah Harvey took bronze in her category for her project, Bio-fouling of Boat Hulls, which successfully created a natural anti-fouling paint that discourages the growth of algae and protozoa.
Harvey earned a $300 prize and a $1,000 entrance scholarship to Western.
Grade 9 student Ankur Shahi received an advancing innovation award for his project on environmentally friendly and efficient energy transmission.
Sandra Dusolt has taken things to a whole new level, creating a bio-filter that cleans the filthiest water on the planet, ultimately making it potable enough for human consumption.
Along the way she used her scientific ingenuity to build a solar-panel to power the filter, and if that wasn’t enough, used the algae that grew in the filter to create bio-diesel fuel.
That’s one smart teenager.
Her efforts won gold at last week’s Canada Wide Science Fair in Toronto and earned the 16-year-old Churchill Collegiate and Vocational Institute Grade 11 student an invite to the Global Youth Science Fair in Slovakia later this summer.
A native of Thailand, who saw firsthand the destruction caused by the improper disposal of sewage, Dusolt said she wanted to create a project that could make a difference in third-world countries.
The judges agreed she’d achieved her goal, she said.
“They were just really impressed with all the things I could do with just one project and they really liked the idea that I could use it in different places around the world, and not just here,” she said on Wednesday morning at her school.
Dusolt sees plenty of applications for the project, which she refined over the course of putting it together, finding a way to cut the cost from more than $1,000 to about $100, vastly increasing its affordability in countries where $100 represents a significant amount of money.
“I think that most people in third-world countries will be able to buy something like this and be able to use it,” she said.
In layman’s term, water is pumped through the bio-filter from the bottom to the top, and is then pushed through a second series of filters, including sand, rock, plants and soil.
Dusolt , enrolled in Churchill’s International Baccalaureate program, said she tested three different samples of water – well water, grey water, which had detergent in it, and sewage.
She tested the samples for seven days, then compared them.
“I tested for e.coli, general coliforms, phosphorous, ammonia and PH levels. The PH remained around seven, which is where it should be around. E. coli and general coliforms started out really high, but by the end of going through these bio-filters they were really low numbers.
“But it wasn’t totally gone yet. The ammonia phosphates decreased a lot throughout the seven days, to the point where they were almost gone,” she said.
The water still had a brown tint, due to harmless tannins.
“To remove the tannins I used an activated carbon filter and also added a tiny bit of bleach in the water to get rid of the colour.”
Then, to prove her hypothesis, she drank the water.
Susan Heald, who advised Dusolt on her project, said the youngster found a project that meant something to her, and from there it was her own energy and enthusiasm that powered her to top spot in Toronto.
“You see a lot of that in these kids. They have an intrinsic motivation to do this. You don’t produce a project like that without having intrinsic motivation,” Heald said.
Duslot won $1,500 cash for top spot and a $4,000 to $5,000 scholarship at one of several Canadian Universities, including Dalhousie, the University of British Columbia, the University of Manitoba, the University of Ottawa and the University of Western Ontario.
Dusolt wasn’t the only Churchill student to win a medal at the competition.
Moriah Harvey took bronze in her category for her project, Bio-fouling of Boat Hulls, which successfully created a natural anti-fouling paint that discourages the growth of algae and protozoa.
Harvey earned a $300 prize and a $1,000 entrance scholarship to Western.
Grade 9 student Ankur Shahi received an advancing innovation award for his project on environmentally friendly and efficient energy transmission.
