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Japan Super Science Fair Profile: Clara and Matt
Anyone who has visited Vancouver Island in the summer will have noticed the vast amounts of yellow-flowered Scotch broom shrubs along the roadside, and often well beyond. While initially pleasing to the eye, that plant is in fact an invasive species that has become the bane of conservationists throughout the region, choking out native plants and spreading increasingly rapidly across the Island since it was originally planted in a Victoria-area garden in the 1850s.
Shawnigan Grade 11 students Clara C. and Matt E. turned the ecological menace of Scotch broom into a project they are preparing to take to the prestigious Japan Super Science Fair in Kyoto later this month.
As students who care deeply about the environment and who grew up in the Shawnigan Lake area, Clara C. and Matt E. are well acquainted with the ecological menace of Scotch broom.
“We are both very passionate about environmental science, and we both grew up on the Island,” Matt related. “We don’t like Scotch broom and wanted to find a sustainable use for it.”
Clara and Matt located Scotch broom that was gathered on campus, then turned it into biochar. Biochar is usually created by burning wood from trees in a low-oxygen environment, but Clara and Matt wanted to see if the hardy stems of Scotch broom would work just as well. Once they had the char, they mixed that with compost to charge it with nutrients, the porous structure of it allowing the nutrients from the compost to seep in.
Next, they mixed the biochar/compost blend into garden soil and used that to grow lettuce, peas and radishes, comparing it with other soil mixtures. The results were largely what they had hoped for, with the biochar-enhanced soil producing the best produce.
“It’s definitely something that would need to be continued to be looked at,” Clara said. “But with the radishes specifically, they were better-quality, regularly shaped radishes.”
Clara and Matt applied to JSSF before they knew what their project would be, but they wanted to make sure it was something related to the West Coast and the Island. Clara was inspired when she learned that her sister’s father-in-law has been teaching himself how to make biochar with wood scraps at home, and he helped them turn the Scotch broom into biochar.
Clara and Matt started work on their project last February, doing it all on their own time, outside of classes and other commitments. Fortunately, because it has a local focus and they both live locally, they were able to do a lot of work over the summer.
“It was all done in the Shawnigan Lake area, which is pretty cool,” Matt said.
The next step with the biochar would be to use it in the Growing Dome to see if it has potential to be employed on a larger basis.
The students can’t wait to head to Japan at the end of October, both for the experience of travelling to a new country and the science fair itself.
“I’ve never left North America before,” Matt said. “I’m excited to go to a new place, meet new people, do the presentation on our project and go to some workshops. I don’t know what it’s going to look like, so I’m very excited to go.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to Japan. It’s high up on my bucket list,” said Clara. “I’m excited to see Japan and spend time showing other people the amount of work I’ve put into my project.”
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Shawnigan Lake School is an independent co-educational boarding school for ages 12 –18 on Canada’s beautiful Pacific Coast. Our diverse, interdisciplinary and innovative programming helps shape the next generation of global leaders.
