Youth

Pakistani students leave to participate in int’l competition

Khalid Khan
Friday, 22-June-2012

 

Pakistani students discover plants that combat soil pollution

Islamabad: Two Pakistani students on Thursday left for US to participate in an international competition about environmental issues being held from June 25-29.
Students from forty countries will present 657 projects in the Genius Olympiad being organized by State University of New York (SUNY) at Oswego and the Terra Science and Education Foundation.
Shadab Rasool Buriro from Khairpur, Sindh and Abdul Daim from Haripur, Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, both students of Pak-Turk International Schools and Colleges will represent Pakistan in the event.
They will exhibit their project, “Removal of Pollutants from Industrial Waste Water by usage of Tea Waste” in the contest.
Supervisor of the students Ahmet Efeturk said that our students have discovered a unique and economical way to reduce soil contamination which is result of accumulation of man-made toxic substances in soil that has a negative effect of plant and animal life.
Pakistan bagged silver medal in 1st Genius Olympiad held in 2011 and he hope that they will win gold medal in the upcoming event, he informed.
He said that so far Pakistani students have won 124 medals in the international and national competitions which not only speak of their extraordinary talent, amazing accomplishments and insights but it is also a source of encouragement for the Pak-Turk teachers.
Speaking about the competition, he said that our students will have a great exposure and chance to see the other projects, especially those regarding sustainability and management of environment which has emerged as a great global issue.
They will participate in workshops, symposiums, cultural events, exhibitions and interact with some of the world’s brightest young minds who do research on different subjects, said Efeturk.
Moreover, experts from Harvard, Cornell, Syracuse and SUNY will guide the participants on how learning takes place and how to improve skills.
The sponsors of the event include Hong Kong Innovative Technology and Education Association, Pathfinder Bank, International Wire Group, Airgas and WCNY.
The Pak-Turk administration has announced a one week trip to Turkey for both the students after the event.
It is to be noted that with the Industrialization and development of industries in the 20th and 21st century, hazardous substances pollute and disturb our environment. Resultantly, the contamination of heavy metals on earth has gradually increased. Heavy metals are extremely toxic and affect the ecological system adversely. Heavy metals can be found in water, soil, sand and many different things, which cause a number of diseases. In our project we had tried to remove heavy metals from soil by a cheap and easy method which is environmental and effective. We used specific plants (a dicot and a monocot species) in our experiment to absorb heavy metals from the contaminated soil. Fertility of the soil is the main concern for humans in these decades. The population of mankind grows day by day and needs more and more food to feed them. To detoxify soil and increase the fertility and decrease the contamination is the key solution in this century. In our project we saw that contaminated soil can be detoxified easily and the result of experiment showed the significant values on graph. According to results, plants can absorb heavy metals and use as body parts. This method will be able to apply worldwide scale for contaminated soils. Plants are cheaper than specialized instrumentation as pollution detectives.

 

 

    

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