8 Issue 57 – October 2016 – QUEEN MARGARET CALLING
Year 13 student Charlotte Hollywood was our
supreme winner of the NIWA Fair, taking home five
awards for her project, Resistance is fertile.
Her investigation explored the effect that
antibacterial detergent had on soil microbes.
“I chose this because antibacterial resistance is
very pressing in light of overuse of antibiotics, and
antibacterials could lead to a catastrophic future
where we cannot cure bacterial infections,” Charlotte
explains.
“On the flip side, microbes are essential for soil in
nitrogen and carbon cycles, in decomposing matter
and putting back into the environment, and I wanted
to know how detergent impacts soil microbes.”
Charlotte watered pots of soils with different
concentrations of antibacterial detergent over the
course of several days.
She then cultured a swab of each pot’s microbes
before counting the number of colonies in each.
Charlotte had expected the number of colonies to
decline over time with increased concentration of
detergent.
“In reality, I discovered one resistant strain which
reproduced exponentially. All other types of bacteria
were killed, allowing the one resistant kind to thrive,”
she explains.
“I concluded that there are definitely dangers of
antibacterial products in killing the good bacteria in
our soil and in encouraging resistance in several types
of bacteria. Interestingly, soon after I had finished my
project, I heard that the US had banned antibacterial
detergents.”
Head Prefect Shweta Iyer was also recognised at
this year’s NIWA Fair, winning three awards for her
project, The Heat is on.
She investigated oil oxidation, by testing out whether
extra virgin olive oil or refined olive oil displayed a
higher oxidative stability under heat over time.
“I decided to explore the oxidative stability of oils
because I noticed that modern nutritional science
appears to emphasise the dangers of ingesting oxidized
oil, due to its carcinogenic qualities and ability to cause
tissue damage in vital organs within the human body,”
Shweta says.
For her project, Shweta heated different samples of
oil for various lengths of time, and then titrated each
of these samples to discover how oxidised each had
become by examining the concentration of hydro
peroxides.
SCIENCE SUCCESS
Queen Margaret College won ten awards at this year’s NIWA Wellington Regional
Science and Technology Fair.
“I concluded that extra virgin olive oil is more
susceptible to oil oxidation than its refined version
when exposed to heat, and hence the refining process
must alter the composition of the oil, allowing it to
display a higher oxidative stability,” Shweta explains.
“I learnt that there are certain naturally occurring
compounds in unrefined oil which can act as pro-
oxidants in oil, making it an undesirable choice when
cooking.”
Charlotte and Shweta are in their final year of the
International Baccalaureate Diploma and both students
completed their Extended Essay on a science based
topic.
Next year Shweta is going to try her hand at Health
Sciences, hoping to eventually study a Bachelor of
Medicine, while Charlotte is planning to study a
Bachelor of Engineering.
The full list of NIWA Fair prize winners are below:
Charlotte Hollywood won the ESR prize, the Capital
City Science Educators prize (Peter Jennings Memorial
prize), the Wellington City Libraries prize, the Number
Works’nWords prize and the Highly Commended prize
in Class 5 for her project, Resistance is fertile.
Shweta Iyer won the NZ Institute of Chemistry prize,
the Wellington Medical Research Foundation prize
and the Highly Commended prize in Class 5 for her
project, The heat is on .
Morgan Bole won the Hugh D. Gordon Memorial
prize in Class 5 for her project, How to shock a plant.
Rachel Zhou won the ESR prize in Class 2 for her
project, Let it flout.
SCIENCE WINNER: Charlotte Hollywood won several
awards at the NIWA Science Fair.