Success in Spain

During the summer holidays, five students attending St Augustine College, Pietà, participated in European Exposcience 2006 in Tarragona, Spain, with their science project entitled "Applelicious! Science makes apples more delicious!'

The students - Sander Grima, Luke Saliba, James Borg, Ambrose Galea and Nicholas Galea - accompanied by their two science teachers, took part in this prestigious science exposition after winning the local NSTF School Contest for Young Scientists held at St James Cavalier last April.

The students set up their stand in the Palau Firal de Tarragona between July 17 and 23, together with over 500 participants from 28 countries. Exposcience was open to the public, who, together with participants could vote for the best stand. The Maltese students' stand was very popular with visitors and participants alike and they made a number of friends from various countries.

It was a great honour for the students to be awarded the Magma Mention in the closing ceremony. Three mentions (presented by the three organisers of Exposcience - Magma, Milset Europe and the Tarragona city council - were awarded and the students' project obtained one of these honourable mentions, which, although not a financial prize, is a great honour, especially when one considers that the project presented by the 13-year-old students was competing with other technological and research projects presented by students worldwide aged 11-25.

All this would not have been possible without the sponsporship of Malta Enterprise, and special thanks go to Martin Debono and Daniel Debono who helped and guided the students in submission of the project to Discover Enterprise, a new concept in Malta which aims to help young students discover their potential both locally and abroad.

It is worth noting that three of these same students had also won Medexpo '04 held in France with another science project entitled "Air pollution, what's the solution?" They had also won €1,000 to help cover part of the participation fee in the ESI '05 held in Chile last year.