A team of five class IX students of Velumanickam Montessori Matriculation Higher Secondary School has won appreciation certificate for their study on the cultivation and values of ‘Algae spirulina platensis’ at the 25th National Children’s Science Congress (NCSC) held in Ahmedabad recently.
After completing the project under the guidance of their science teacher P Dhamayanthi, team leader J. Joshan Harish presented the study at the NCSC held at the science city in Ahmedabad from December 27 to 31 and won ‘certificate of appreciation’ and accolades.
The NCSC, a programme of National council for science and technology communication, under the aegis of Department of science and technology was organised with the focal theme of ‘science technology and innovation for sustainable development’.
The students won the entry to present their project in the science congress after winning stiff competitions at district and state level events. “It’s a matter of pride that our project was selected for the NCSC and we won recognition at the Congress,” said Harish, recipient of young scientist award in 2015.
The team would make further studies to ensure that the nutrient rich spirulina was made affordable to the poor and the needy, he said. The other students involved in the project are A Aruna Srinithi, S Kaviarasan, S Fathima and S Karthik – all class IX students.
Besides a dietary supplement, spirulina could be grown to address the menacing global warming as it produced oxygen and absorbed carbon dioxide from the environment, the students said. The blue green algae could be widely used in the areas of agriculture, medicine, aquaculture, poultry and bioremediation process, they added.
After launching the project, the students after collecting the mother culture of spirulina from the estuary at Muthupettai, near here, cultivated the algae and produced capsules to be consumed as dietary supplement. The team of students also tested the organism as manure in saline soil, fed to chicks, fish and recorded the growth.
After two months of observation, the students found that plants fed with ‘spirulina manure’ grew healthy. Chicks and fish fed by spirulina also grew healthy, they said. The team members and their parents had taken the capsules produced by them and they too felt energised, they claimed.
“We want to familiarise the benefits of spirulina to the common people and its usage in different fields,” Harish said. School correspondent Velu Manoharan and Principal Parimala T Antony congratulated the students for bringing laurels to the school.
