Celebrity gardener Jim McColl will tomorrow (Saturday) present prizes to the winner and runners up of a contest which was organised to mark the birth three hundred years ago of one of the world’s greatest botanists.
Hundreds of secondary pupils from across the North-east entered the Creativity, Curiosity and Science competition organised by the University of Aberdeen to celebrate the life and work of Carl Linnaeus who devised the system for naming plants and animals that is still used today.
The S1, S2 and S3 pupils were tasked with designing a poster featuring a picture they had drawn, or photograph they had taken, of a plant or animal. Competitors also had to find out its Latin name and explain why they thought it had been given this name.
The contest proved incredibly popular with 18 schools across Aberdeen City and Shire sending in 458 posters which were then judged by a panel comprising Dr Martyn Gorman, Reader in Zoology at the University; Alan Findlay, Facility Manager of the David Welch Winter Gardens at Aberdeen's Duthie Park, and Charlie Hackett, Lecturer in Textiles and Design, at Gray's School of Art.
Tomorrow at a special Linnaeus weekend taking place in and around the University's Zoology Building, the name of the pupil who has won the contest - and a digital camera kindly donated by city store John Lewis - will be revealed by Jim McColl.
The well known face from BBC's The Beechgrove Garden will also announce the pupils who have taken second and third place and, as a result, digital cameras, plus the names of the five runners up who will go home with books about plants and animals.
Linnaeus co-organiser Dr Andy Schofield, who is Academic Coordinator Promoting Science at the University, is thrilled the popular gardener is making the presentations. He said: "Jim McColl is the ideal person to help with our Linnaeus celebrations because of his enthusiasm and devotion to the plant world."
Tomorrow's prize giving is just one part of what is happening this Saturday and Sunday between 12 noon and 4pm at the University's Zoology Building which is opening to the public its Natural History Centre, Zoology Museum and Cruickshank Botanic Garden.
All posters entered for the science-art contest will be on display and there will be nature and museum trails as well as interactive activities aimed at secondary school children and their families, but open to all and free.
Linnaeus: A Tercentenary Exhibition - a free exhibition exploring the life, scientific work and legacy of Linnaeus is also on display at the Zoology Museum over the same weekend during the same times.