the-BA : Scottish BA CREST final

The four winners with Professor Peter Downes, Dean of the School of Life Sciences at Dundee University

The 2005 Scottish Final of the BA CREST Awards took place at Dundee University on Thursday, 21st April. With 50 projects entered, 27 of them at Bronze level, this was the largest Scottish final ever.

Congratulations to the three winners:

Rosalyn Hawkins of Dollar Academy won the Bronze category with her project "How cool is Dollar?", which looked at temperature and altitude variations between her school and her home in Dunfermline.

Dollar Academy also took the Silver award with Sarah Blake's project "Plant tolerance of pollutants".

The Gold award went to Colin Dyer of Hamilton Grammar School for his project entitled "Purification of the CD-81 protein receptor to the hepatitis C virus".

The winners will all go forward to compete with finalists from the rest of the UK at the BA CREST Science Fair in early 2006.

The Scottish BA CREST finalists also compete for a special award - the Bill Bryce Trophy - made to the individual whose project "best represents the spirit of CREST", displaying creativity and enthusiasm for science. The 2005 Bill Bryce trophy was awarded to Louise Cunningham (also of Dollar Academy) for her project, "Light effects on plant growth".