A 16-year-old Ashdod teen has won the 22nd annual national Biology Olympics held at Bar-Ilan University, taking first place for her winning project, “The effect of phosphates on ‘chlorella’ algae growth.
In her advanced project, Shai Nehemia — who attends Makif Gimel High School — studied the influence of a non-organic compound, phosphate, on the growth and development of chlorella.
Chlorella is an algae that has drawn much interest over the past few years as it has a very high photosynthetic efficiency, and it may, in theory, serve as a potential source of energy and food.
The Biology Olympics were sponsored by the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences at Bar-Ilan, under the initiative of the Education Ministry’s Department of Biology, and the support of the Ministry’s Science and Technology Administration.
At the conclusion of the competition Bar-Ilan University awarded Nehemia a full one-year scholarship to the faculty of her choice.
Karina Afekishev from Mevo’ot HaNegev School earned second place and Noam Manor from HaKfar Hayarok took third place.