Months of planning and preparing science experiments paid off in a big way Saturday for five students from Prince George and Fraser Lake.
Their exhibits at the Central Interior Science Exhibition were good enough to qualify them for the Canada-Wide Science Fair, May 11-18 in Lethbridge, Alta.
Daniel O'Reilly, a Grade 8 student at College Heights secondary school, used six species of wood ash, a geological deposit known as diatomaceous earth, and tea tree oil to determine what could be used as a natural caterpillar repellent.
It was a continuation of O'Reilly's Another One Bites the Dust project, which earned him a silver medal last year at the Canada-Wide event in Charlottetown, P.E.I.
Grade 10 students Brooke Tower and Aimee Alspaugh of Westside Academy teamed up as repeat Canada-Wide qualifiers for their efforts to develop a portable vessel used to convert used restaurant cooking oil into biodiesel fuel in a project entitled Pure Future Biodiesel.
Andrew Schulz, a Grade 10 student at Fraser Lake secondary, qualified with his diabetic health investigation, Self-Monitoring Blood Glucose.
Elizabeth Schulz, a Grade 8 student at Fraser Lake, found ways to reduce the population of pond snails, also known as Lymnae stagnalis, which carry the parasites that cause swimmer's itch.
For a complete list of category winners from the Central Interior Science Exhibition, go to www. secure.youthscience.ca.
