Pakistani students win top award at international science event in US

ISLAMABAD – Two Pakistani students have won a top award at an international science event in the US.

Talia Kulsoom and Umm-e-Kulsoom, 12th grade students at the Pak-Turk Maarif International Schools and Colleges, Gulshan-e-Iqbal Girls Campus in Karachi, won the first position in the Physical Science category at the 2022 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Atlanta.

The school announced in a statement, the students' project completed under the supervision of their teacher Hira Bashir focused on the extraction of “vegan leather” from Cedrus deodara, a cedar tree species native to the Himalayas.

The school said, “Our intelligent students believe in the green world and in the conservation of resources, which encouraged them to come up with this unique idea.”

The ISEF is an annual event organised by the Society for Science and Engineering, a non-profit group headquartered in the US.

The organisation describes the event as “the world’s largest international science competition,” bringing together approximately 1,800 high school students from more than 63 countries each year.

The Maarif Foundation has 28 schools and colleges across Pakistan that provide quality education to thousands of students in several cities, including Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore.