Emma-Johnson

[Music plays and images of award participants flash by on screen. Text appears: BHP Billiton Science and Engineering Awards 2017]

[Image changes to show Emma Johnson inspecting leaves of red ironbark trees]

[Image changes to show Emma standing and smiling at the camera]

Emma Johnson: Hi, my name is Emma Johnson, I’m in Year 9 at Daramalan College and my project is: Sequestered carbon in 5 year old red ironbark trees at the Arboretum.

[Image changes to show Emma walking amongst red ironbark trees and then taking measurements around the trunk of one of the trees]

My project uses tree height and diameter at 1.3-meters to find the total above-ground biomass of the tree,

[Image has changed back to show Emma seated and talking to the camera]

and from there, the mass of the carbon and equivalent CO2 sequestered by the tree.

[Image changes to show Emma seated and typing on a keyboard]

I’ve always been interested in environmental science and I wanted to do something in forestry and I thought it would be interesting to see how much CO2 these trees had sequestered since they’d been planted at the Arboretum five years ago.

[Image changes back to show Emma walking amongst rows red ironbark trees]

Red ironbark trees are fairly representative of most Australian hardwood, so from this research you could possibly find a number for the sequestered CO2 by Australian hardwoods, annually.

[Image changes to show Emma seated and flicking through her report]

I think this research could, potentially, impact the whole world, in that it shows whether planting more trees could be a viable option for reducing carbon pollution in the atmosphere.

[Image changes to show Emma seated at a table and working on a laptop]

I would like to explore more in environmental science, possibly biology, because I just love learning about how the natural world works and if what I could do could make a difference then that would just be amazing for me.

[Image has changed back to show Emma seated and talking to the camera and then moves to show her walking through rows red ironbark trees]

Both my parents are geologists, so I always sort of grew up around science and seeing these things and having my parents explain what they were in a scientific way,

[Image has changed back to show Emma seated and talking to the camera]

so I guess I sort of had a natural predisposition towards science because of my parents.

[Image changes to show Emma standing and holding a hockey stick]

Well I play hockey in winter and I play trumpet in the school band.

[Image changes to show Emma playing trumpet and then changes back to show Emma seated and talking to the camera]

I just enjoy being able to make music, and then from there, being able to understand the music that I listen to at a deeper level.

I think science and engineering will be at the forefront of everything, even more than it already is, hopefully, to give humans a greater insight into everyday life.

[Music plays and text appears: BHP Billiton Science and Engineering Awards 2017]

[Sponsors logos appear on screen]