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Thursday, 19 April 2012

Local high school students have impressed the world with their knowledge and skills, thanks to mentoring by UWA scientists.

Four students from Shenton College have just returned from the Beijing Youth Science Competition, the biggest of its kind in the world, where outstanding students and teachers share their research and ideas.

They won three gold medals and one silver medal against fierce competition. More than a million students around the world apply to take part in the forum and 400 are successful.

Emily Barrett, Thomas Gambutti, Arisa Hosakowa and Edward Leman represented their school, after working closely with UWA scientists since June last year.

Arisa and Thomas are also state finalists in the BioGENEius Challenge, another international science competition. WA is the only Australian state to compete in BioGENEius and Shenton College was the first Australian school to be invited to attend the Beijing forum.

These achievements have grown out of Learning Links, the partnership between UWA and Shenton, which began in 1999 with Hollywood High School. When it was transformed into Shenton College in 2001, the partnership was renewed and has been a successful part of the school's program, especially for bright students.

In 2005, UWA included Belmont Senior College in the Learning Links program, then added Perth Modern School in 2007.

The program brings students, teachers and UWA academics together to challenge and enrich the students and to encourage them to aim for tertiary education, particularly at UWA .

Links have been established with almost every discipline from sport to language, from music to science, from art to agriculture.

The Beijing participants spent several months working with UWA academics on specific research projects.

Emily Barrett worked with Associate Professor Jillian Swaine in the School of Surgery at Fremantle Hospital. "

Emily was outstanding," Professor Swaine said. "She did all this extra work with me and still managed to be dux of her class at the end of last year. She worked all through the summer holidays and submitted her academic report and poster in the first week of February. "

I presented her work at an international conference in Vancouver last month. Emily was fourth author on the paper I gave. I still can't believe she is only 14."

Emily's research was unique since it evaluated the reliability of two cuttingedge tools to measure sitting posture in individuals with spinal cord injuries, with the intent of eventually using these technologies to prevent medically serious pressure ulcers. "

She worked with three research assistants, Marianne Romeo, Vi Nguyen and Lorraine Johnson who are occupational therapists and 26 patients with spinal cord injury recruited through the state spinal cord injury unit at Shenton Park," Professor Swaine said. "

Emily's study was pivotal to inform our international collaboration which is funded in Australia by the NH MRC . She learned a lot, we gained a lot - it was win-win."

Thomas Gambutti was partnered with Dr Natasha Teakle in the Centre of Excellence for Ecohydrology. His project demonstrated that under waterlogged and saline conditions, a legume stored excess ions to prevent shoot uptake. He identified the gene which enabled the plant to survive in salty waterlogged soils.

This has an impact on further studies to find plants suitable for WA 's salt-affected farming areas.

"Seeing the change in Thomas, from when he first started doing experiments with me last June, was amazing," Dr Teakle said. "

His confidence, his critical thinking and problem-solving skills are all excellent now."

Thomas spent the afternoon with Dr Teakle about once a fortnight, spending a lot of time extracting ions from tissue. "Thomas is from the country and went home for school holidays so, unlike the students who live in Perth, he couldn't spend so much time here then.

"He still did a great job, learned a lot and submitted a great report and poster at the end of the project."

Arisa Hosakowa was mentored by Dr Lars Kamphuis and Winthrop Professor Karam Singh in the UWA Institute of Agriculture where she worked in the joint UWA -CSIRO molecular plant pathology laboratory. Her project looked at the cowpea aphid, a major pest that causes big crop losses in many countries around the world. Her project was to identify regulatory genes linked to aphid resistance.

"I was very impressed with how quickly Arisa was able to grasp the significance of the work and master the molecular biology techniques we used," said Dr Kamphuis.

"She showed great perseverance to troubleshoot and overcome technical difficulties and it was a great pleasure to work with her. The end result was a fantastic poster with promising results which could lead to improvement of resistance to aphids in legumes, important for many developing countries."

Winthrop Professor Gary Kendrick took Edward Leman under his wing at the Oceans Institute.

They studied the environmental impact on the restoration of seagrass beds and the role of seagrass in carbon sequestration in Albany.

Shenton College Principal, Michael Morgan, said the students' wonderful performance in Beijing was made possible by the generous support of UWA and the Learning Links program.

"We cherish our partnership with UWA ," he said.

Published in UWA News , 16 April 2012

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