Manuela Borerro and Sara Escobar raised the standard of senior projects at Colegio Bolivar this year conducting innovative and original research on palma areca. The title of their project was “Measurement of Chrysalidocarpus lutescens H.Wendl. for the creation of allometric equations to estimate carbon content and CO₂ equivalency”.

This senior project began the during their 11^th grade after the visit of Andres Sierra and Prof. Luz Amalia who taught students about basic tree measurements and discussed carbon sequestration. Manuela and Sara asked a simple question which began an odyssey into a very niche scientific topic. They asked what about carbon measurements for palms, specifically, Palma areca, a palm that is found everywhere in Cali.

After conducting initial research they found that very little work had been done on palm species and carbon sequestration and that no investigations had tackled clumping palm species like palma areca.  Literature searches on Dypsis lutescens, now renamed Chrysalidocarpus lutescens, the scientific name for Palma Areca, were conducted and a methodology was set out. Luz Amalia was contacted to help with the science behind the measurement of metrics to determine allometric equations (equations that allow the estimation of carbon content in trees) and specific questions of how to determine carbon content.

 

 

A methodology was developed and no palm on campus was safe. A destructive sampling methodology was developed where palms were measured in-situ, cut down, re-measured, samples dried and re-measured to determine dry weight and samples of these taken to the combustion laboratory at University of Valle, Cali, where Carbon Content and other metrics were determined in the laboratory. The Don Simón Club co-funded the cost of this analysis.

 

Results were obtained, statistical tests run using JASP software and allometric equations were developed to determine carbon content.

CC = 156.05 e^{0.825 H} (R² = 0.9246; p < 0.001).

Their work was presented to judges and then a subsequent panel of judges that determined the work to be of distinction level quality.

At their graduation in June 2024 they were awarded the title of distinction in senior project and are now in the process of writing this research for submission to Palms, the scientific journal of the International Palm Society.