"Canada needs innovation to compete and prosper, and that means we need to encourage and celebrate our innovative youth," says Bruce Fenwick, Executive Director of the Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation. The Foundation's Young Canadian Program recognizes innovative youth competing at the national science fair.

The Foundation chooses eight projects every year from the Canada-Wide Science Fair to receive a $500 Manning Innovation Achievement Award. Of these, four are selected for an additional $4000 Manning Young Canadian Innovation Award.

The Winning Projects
Amy-Jayne Hutchings, a grade 12 student from Ottawa, won $4500 from the Manning Innovation Awards program for her cutting edge research in the push to find a cure for spinal cord injuries. Working with researchers at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Hutchings studied the ability of adult stem cells in a lab dish to produce different types of nervous system cells. She showed that by adding particular biomolecules to the stem cells, she could coax them to differentiate into specific types of cells.

Warsaw, Ontario's Alyson Bell won $4500 from the Foundation for her oregano water filter. She came up with the idea from "the Italian secret in my Grandfather's spaghetti sauce," which can last over three weeks in the fridge without spoiling. Bell showed that oregano stops bacteria from growing in a Petri plate. She then built a simple water filter with a layer of fresh oregano between sandy gravel and charcoal: Contaminated water poured through the oregano filter came out clean and potable.

Eddy Fortier of Sherbrooke, Québec won $4500 from the Foundation for his tire-chain replacement system, "L'Xtraction aid," which can be used to put tire chains on when a vehicle is already stuck in snow. For his engineering project, the 17-year-old designed and tested a series of prototypes of his tire-chain replacement system. The device worked well and he has applied for a patent on his invention.

The Foundation also awarded $4500 to Pickardville, Alberta's Kyle Schole for his project to get electricity from tire-eating microbes. The grade 11 student cultured bacteria from the dirt at a tire-processing plant, then added the bacteria to samples of ground-up old tires. As the bacteria degraded the tire material, they produced a small amount of electricity! A creative twist to the project was using LEDs with different wavelengths of light to try to encourage the microbes to degrade the tires.

Another four $500 Manning Innovation Achievement Awards went to Elise Tessier of Berwick, Nova Scotia for her for her project to increase the vitamin content of spinach; Tim Cooper of Wolfville, Nova Scotia for his new computer programming language; Midale, Saskatchewan's Erick Vandenhurk and Jarika Penny, for engineering a grain bin lid that stays shut when it's supposed to; and Victoria, BC's Michael Peters for his exercise device to prevent deadly blood clots in wheel-chair bound individuals.

Hutchings, Bell, Fortier, and Schole will be recognized in person at the Foundation's 29th Annual Awards Gala, with honourary Co-Chairs Senator Pamela Wallin, OC, and Preston Manning, CC, this September 17th in Ottawa.

The Young Canadian Innovation Awards are sponsored by Suncor, the Jim McEwen Family and the Dave Mitchell Family.