Algal bloom project wins Wrybill Trophy for Canterbury

The Wrybill Trophy for the top Canterbury science fair project, as judged by Environment Canterbury, was presented to Lincoln High School’s Thomas Ferguson by Lincoln University’s Professor Jon Hickford and Dame Margaret Bazley in Christchurch today.

The top junior and senior Environment Canterbury winners at the Christchurch and Timaru science and technology fairs are eligible for the Wrybill award.

Thomas was the winner of the senior category winner in Christchurch and Dinuki Karunasekera collected the junior prize. In Timaru, Larissa Kinsbury won the senior category, with Laura Cockroft and Kelly Waud winning the junior prize.

Thomas’ project, titled “From Bloom to Burn”, investigated the possibility of using pond algae to create biodiesel.

Dame Margaret welcomed the students and their families to Environment Canterbury before each of the entrants presented their work to commissioners. Dame Margaret complimented the students on the high standard of their work before wishing them in their respective careers.

Professor Hickford said that deciding on the Wrybill Award winner was always a difficult task as the entries are of such a high standard yet all are different.

He said the award was not just about conservation, but about students identifying environmental issues in Canterbury and problems facing our community today and finding long-term, workable scientific solutions to them – a better way of doing things now and into the future.

Commissioner Tom Lambie said it was exciting to see the scientific linkages between the projects and how they related to the issues farmers are facing are in the region.

In judging Thomas as the winner of the trophy, Professor Hickford said that he his project had met these criteria, and while there are challenges ahead, Thomas’ work had the potential to be commercially successful and above all, could be undertaken in New Zealand.