Avril Bries and Howell Bayona: Young Pinoy scientists

MANILA, Philippines - Affirming that the Filipino youth has a major role in easing major global environmental headaches, two young Filipinos were among the students who bagged the top prizes at the 16th International Environmental Project Olympiad held last week in Turkey. GMA News reported that two young students from the Quezon City Science High School emerged victorious and each secured a gold medal in the 44-country competition’s environmental chemistry category. The report said that the two top prize winners, Avril Bries and Howell Henrian Bayona, were greeted by relatives and supporters as they arrived from the Eurasian country at the airport in Manila on Friday last week. Bries and Bayona were the only two Filipinos who represented the country in the IEPO, which started in 1993 and was participated in this year by 190 top-performing students from all over the world. The students gathered in Istanbul’s Firat Cultural Center to present their scientific masterpieces geared towards possibly remedying the world’s most serious environmental problems. Bries’s winning research was entitled, “The Extraction of Bioethanol from Pineapple (Ananas comosus) Peelings through Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation using the Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae." In her breakthrough study, Avril explored the possibility of deriving bio-fuel from pineapple peelings or biomass to minimize the Philippines’ dependence on imported petroleum. She produced ethanol by breaking the peelings’ carbohydrates into its simple sugar components. “Kailangan po ng Pilipinas ng ibang source ng fuel dahil nag-iimport po tayo ng langis. So ang ginawa ko po, nag-produce po ako ng bio-ethanol mula sa peelings ng pinya (The Philippines needs an alternative source of fuel since we are importing oil. So what I did was produce bio-ethanol from pineapple peelings)," the young girl explained. Meanwhile, instead of using fruit peelings, Bayona chose to tweak the chemical composition of cow manure and use its microorganisms as biocatalyst to produce electricity. Called, “Harvesting electrical energy from cellulose using cow manure microorganisms as biocatalysts in a two-chamber microbial fuel cell," Bayona completed his study with fellow classmate Ian Kim Tabios. “Bibigyan ka nila ng score tapos ita-tally nila iyon tapos ilang beses iyon - mga pito o anim - para magkaroon sila ng mga set ng winners (The judges will award you points then they will tally them six or seven times to come up with sets of winners)," an enthusiastic Bayona said in explaining the scoring process of the competition. Aside from environmental chemistry in which the two Filipinos won, the Olympiad also covers four more categories in the field of environmental science including environmental biology, environmental health, social environment, and environmental physics. Among the 101 entries, 60 projects became eligible for medals: 10 gold medals, 20 silver medals, and 31 bronze medals. Delegates of nine other projects also became recipients of the Jury Special Award. This year’s roster of scientific experiments range from those about snow being used as pollution indicator and using coconut as alternative fuel to those about saving butterflies and even life on the moon. Consistent achievers Bayona’s same research had previously won first place in the Applied Science Category at the 4th National Science and Mathematics Congress of Regional Science High Schools held in February. The budding scientist recently passed the University of the Philippines College Admission Test, where he applied for a Bachelor of Science degree in Speech Pathology in the said premier state university. But Bries is not to be left behind in terms of collecting prizes. Last March, she took home the top honors at an information technology writing contest. In her essay, the young girl stressed that through sustainable technology, IT products and the environment can co-exist. “It may not be the answer to all the conflicts between technology and our environment, but it’s a giant leap towards the right direction," she wrote. In 2005, Filipino students also won awards from INEPO. Christopher Allan A. Liquigan and Yetlen B. Laboro were each awarded bronze medal for their inventions on bacteria battery. Jeremy Frederick Tayag and Kristine Ann Carandang also won bronze medals the same year for their project on the biodegradation of xylene, a colorless flammable volatile liquid hydrocarbon used as a solvent. - GMANews.TV