Johannesburg - Two Johannesburg pupils have been selected as semi-finalists of 30 from around the world in the Breakthrough Junior Challenge competition.
Aditya Kumar and Milo Shan are in the running to receive $400 000 (about R7 million) worth of prizes, including a college scholarship and a new science lab for their school.
The Breakthrough Junior Challenge, founded in 2015, is a global science video contest that encourages students to create engaging and imaginative videos that demonstrate difficult scientific concepts and theories in the physical or life sciences.
Aditya made a video about quantum entanglement, when two particles link together in a certain way no matter how far apart they are in space.
The pupil, who plans to study science at university, chose the challenging subject because he loves making science more approachable to people. He said if he won the challenge, he would use the prize to bring a science lab to the school, which they “desperately need”, he said.
Milo made a video about special relativity, and he became interested in science at a young age, when his grandparents read science articles from encyclopaedias.
For his submission, he did his own animation for the video, and hopes when people watch they “see what science actually is. It’s not just about memorisation. Science is cool. I want people to be excited about science and be curious to learn more. Science is the closest thing we have to magic in this world.”
The pupil wants to continue to study science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) and is especially interested in travelling to space some day and perhaps creating his own commercial space company.
The finalists’ videos are up on YouTube and Facebook, and the general public can vote for a People’s Choice winner in the Popular Vote Challenge until midnight on September 20.
The Star