Raji Doshi’s love of collecting seashells helped inspire an experiment in ocean chemistry. The 13-year-old from Farmington, Connecticut, paired algae with aragonite, a calcium-carbonate mineral, to investigate reducing acidification. Her ALKACORE prototype won the 3M Young Scientist Challenge after the October finals.
Working with mentor Deborah Isabelle, Raji developed and tested the system over the summer. Competition organizers report increased algae biomass and reduced dissolved carbon dioxide. Those are prototype results, not independent evidence of a treatment ready to protect coastal waters.