Prime Minister’s Future Scientist Prize winner, Kerikeri’s Sunny Perry, working in the lab on her award-winning soil research.
Prime Minister’s Future Scientist Prize winner, Kerikeri’s Sunny Perry, working in the lab on her award-winning soil research.
A Kerikeri high school student has won the Prime Minister’s Future Scientist Prize for her groundbreaking soil research that will change the way landowners and councils manage land.
Sunny Perry has received the award for her research, which discovered that some soils in Northland are highly corrosive — acidic enough to eat away at concrete foundations and damage ecosystems.
Perry was a Year 12 student at Kerikeri High School when she completed the project, which earned her the Prime Minister’s Future Scientist Prize.
The research has the potential for wide-reaching impact, by generating new data that will change the way landowners and councils manage land.
She said the idea for her research came when her father, an engineer, told her about potential acid sulphate soils (PASS). These types of soils, when exposed to oxygen, generate sulphuric acid, which can have a detrimental impact on biodiversity, infrastructure, and human health.
He explained that not much was known about whether these types of soils are found in Northland, and his daughter decided to investigate further.
“I found it quite interesting how one type of soil can be so damaging for the environment and damage infrastructure and the ecosystem,” Perry said.
She did preliminary research and found maps of these soils for Whangārei and the Kaipara district, but none for the Far North district.
Sunny Perry collecting samples from a stream in the Far North for her groundbreaking research, which has won her one of the country’s top science awards for young people
“My project was about mapping where these soils are, and trying to predict where they can be found in Northland.”
Based on her research, she knew that PASS are formed from soil that is rich in organic matter, waterlogged, and deficient in oxygen. In those conditions, microbes and bacteria in the soil are forced to use anaerobic respiration, which converts sulphates into sulphides.
She put together a research plan, selecting sites in wetlands to begin sampling, trying to find the “mysterious soils”.
She also used historical records to identify low-lying sites that had been wetlands about 10,000 years ago. Based on these predictions, she hypothesised she would detect PASS at 70 per cent of her selected sites.
Over the span of her fieldwork, Perry collected 480 samples from 20 sites in the Far North, all while completing her normal schoolwork.
She developed a geographic information system (GIS) map to help her predict sites that might be likely to have PASS, and modified a method for sampling and testing from the Australian National Acid Sulfates Soils Guidance.
Perry developed a procedure involving bagging, vacuum packing, and chilling her samples — this significantly increased efficiency and accuracy compared with the methods described in the Australian manual.
She reduced errors by including triple trials for each depth, calibrating the digital pH meter, and thoroughly cleaning her equipment to prevent cross-contamination.
And the results showed her predictions were quite accurate — she detected PASS at 90 per cent of the sites, including inland sites where PASS had never been recorded before.
Perry said when these types of soils were exposed to air, iron sulphides can react rapidly with oxygen to produce sulphuric acid. Sulphuric acid in soils can have a range of negative effects, including for plants, animals and humans, and can even “attack” materials such as concrete.
Importantly, though, PASS can be treated to reduce this danger, for example by adding lime (calcium carbonate) to the soil to neutralise the acidity.
Kerikeri High School student Sunny Perry has won the Prime Minister’s Future Scientist Prize for her groundbreaking soil research that will change the way landowners and councils manage land.
So results will be useful for the agricultural and building industries in Northland, and for efforts to preserve biodiversity in and around waterways and the natural environment. She hopes she can take her research further — “with more development to my map and further refinement I’ll have a map that can be used by land developers and councils to show what soils need to be treated and which soils to avoid”.
Perry’s chemistry teacher, Jackie Robertson, head of the science department at Kerikeri High, is incredibly proud of Perry and her pioneering research.
“It’s just wonderful what she’s achieved. She’s a lovely girl and she deserves to get this award,” Robertson said.
She said her enthusiasm and love of science can inspire other girls to get into science — “she’ll go a long way”.
Kerikeri High Principal Mike Clint has known Perry since she started at the school in Year 7 and has watched her grow into “a really confident, capable, very able student”.
“Sunny’s award is huge for her and we’re really proud of it, but it’s also great recognition for our hard-working science department. It’s going to set the bar really high for students to come.”
The experts on the selection panel were impressed with the scale of the research and its potential applications for management of land use .
Sunny plans to use the prize to finance her university education, but with a broad interest in the world of science, she’s still deciding what she plans to specialise in.
