Youth and Their Science Discoveries

Paula Johanson

There are a variety of stories from around the world, telling of young people using science to discover amazing and useful things! Many of their projects are of particular interest in a world facing climate change and resource emergencies.

Check out the story of Fionn Ferriera, described as an eighteen-year-old wunderkind. At the 2019 Google Science Fair, he took the top prize. His invention? Creating a way to remove microplastics from ocean water. Click here for a link to read more about Fionn and the Google Science Fair.

It's not so simple to tell you the story of a South African youth who was part of a resounding success at rescuing penguins, during the oil spill when a tanker sank off his country's coast in 2000. He learned of the difficulty rescuers were having in removing crude oil safely and completely from the feathers of sea birds. While practising at home with a couple of feathers and a sample of crude oil, this teenager ended up inventing a way to clean oil spills off penguins, using a combination of dish detergent and ... well, that would be telling. Dyan deNapoli tells all about this teenager and his dad as one small part of her terrific book The Great Penguin Rescue: 40,000 Penguins, a Devastating Oil Spill, and the Inspiring Story of the World's Largest Animal Rescue. She's the penguin scientist who was present at this rescue, and you can learn more about her at this link to her website. Dyan deNapoli's book has so much to tell about professionals and volunteers working with animals, and solving this crisis. It's recommended reading for any family with a young person interested in working with animals, or worried about how people can cope with resource emergencies.

There's a family in Colorado that was learning how to test their drinking water. Their daughter, Gitanjali Rao, wanted to find a way to test water reliably and quickly. While browsing the MIT website, this eleven-year-old came up with an adaption for technology she read about in an article. Her portable device tests for lead in water, which is a problem for many people and places. This story is a terrific read for people who are upset by reading all the news articles about undrinkable water in Flint, Michigan or on First Nations reserves.

These three brief mentions are just a little of the great news that can be found about young people using science to make the world a better place.

Newfoundland Rocks!

This summer I visited Newfoundland. I’d heard lots about its attractions - people, music, scenery, food, icebergs, whales, puffins. But I was surprised at what a world-class fascinating place it is for geology. Gros Morne National Park, on the west coast, is a case in point. 

One of the landmarks in the area is the Tablelands mountain range, a reddish lump of rock over 700 meters high, and totally barren of plant life. 

Part of the Tablelands mountain range.

For once, the lack of vegetation isn’t because humans cleared it all. It’s because the rock itself is toxic to plant life. The area is a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site because it’s unique. The Tablelands consist of rock from the earth’s mantle. This was discovered by geologist Bob Stevens in the 1970’s and it was an important factor in the acceptance at the time of the tectonic plate theory. 

The earth is made up of layers: core, mantle and crust.

Cutaway diagram of Earth's internal structure (to scale) with inset showing detailed breakdown of structure (not to scale)

Everywhere (almost) the mantle is covered by the crust. The Tablelands is unique in exposing a large chunk of the mantle. The mantle contains a lot of metals: iron (accounting for the rust-red colour), magnesium, chrome, mercury, platinum, nickel. And that's why it's toxic to plants.

Over time, the effect of water on the rock creates serpentinite, a lovely texture like – of course – a snake skin. 

Tectonic Plates

This map shows 15 of the largest plates.

This theory was hotly disputed as late as the 1970’s but has now been generally accepted. The earth’s crust consists of a number of plates which slowly float around on the surface of the mantle. Occasionally (very occasionally) they crash into each other and then drift apart again. Right now the North American plate is moving North-West at a rate of about 2.3 cm (not quite an inch) every year.

The plates don’t necessarily stay intact through this process. Newfoundland was formed by two plates colliding. They were more or less the earlier versions of the North American and Eurasian plates. When they drifted apart, the European bit remained stuck to the (new) North American plate. So the Western half of Newfoundland is geologically similar to the rest of North America, and the Eastern half is similar to Ireland in the Eurasian plate.