Year 13 pupils Lexi and Ryan have achieved success in the first Cambridge Biology Challenge. They received a Distinction (the highest level) for their submission and were declared 'Category Award Winners' for the most original entry.
The Cambridge Biology Challenge, run by Homerton College, is a nationwide annual competition which challenges students to think deeply about the sort of questions that are asked of Cambridge University students. The competition had a total of 2000 participants. The task was to answer the question 'If aliens existed on other planets what could we predict about their biology?'.
A digital drawing of Lexi and Ryan's designed organism, the 'Siliconisaur'.
The pair predicted how an alien life form may have evolved through creating our prerequisites for life, and then making predictions about its biology e.g. being derived from silicon compounds, heat resistance or the use of ATP synthase for nutrition.
The siliconisaur is a filter-feeding primary consumer found on Mars, located in an ecosystem around Olympus Mons, the solar system’s largest volcano. There are many extremophile archaea present here, their main food-source. Being silicon-based, it also collects dust from sandstorms for biomass, allowing it to grow larger.
The Challenge is an insight into the types of questions that could be asked at Oxbridge interviews. It provides teams with the opportunity to compete against other young people nationally. The teams also have access to special Biology webinars hosted by Cambridge University scientists and teaching staff.
Congratulations to Lexi and Ryan on this remarkable achievement!
