Run Ze Cao, a student from Martingrove Collegiate in Etobicoke, Ont., placed second in the competition among 233 of the world's brightest young scientists. His three teammates — Rex Xia of Toronto's Northern Secondary School, Qingda Hu of the Ontario Science Centre School in Toronto and Melodie Guan, a student from the University of Toronto Schools — placed in the top 50 per cent of competitors.
Each student was selected from high schools across the country though a rigorous evaluation process involving tests and essays. For Guan,it was a potentially life-changing experience. Like the rest of her team, Guan, 15, has always been a straight-A student. But it wasn't until she reached the international biology competition that she thought a career in biology-related research was possible.
Her parents suggested she pursue business administration because of Guan's affinity for mathematics. But since the competition, they have come around to the idea of a career in research. "They saw that I really liked it," she said. "And that I'm pretty good at it." Pretty good, indeed. Guan placed seventh overall in the world.
The competition, which ran this year from July 11 to 18, draws students from 59 countries to compete in theoretical exams as well as experiment-style labs. The first lab had students examine an aerial photograph and calculate the location's biodiversity. The second asked students to identify insects and plants and explain how one benefits the other. Another had them to examine the concentration of a specific protein, and the final lab was a dissection.
The specimen? A spider.
Guan said she breezed through the theoretical exams but was stumped by the dissection. "I had never dissected anything that small," she said. "I couldn't find a scalpel, so I tried to do it with my hands.
"That was definitely the most difficult part," she added. "During my training we dissected larger species, like starfish and worms, but never anything that small."
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/07/27/f-biology-olympiad-canada.html#ixzz0x9lTe0OX
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