Ollie Hotton has spent the Christmas holidays helping local seaweed experts and family friends, Patrick Keany and Valeria Checchin, to gather vraic in Belcroute Bay in St Brelade for research by Imperial College London.
Ollie, a pupil at Victoria College Prep, said: ‘I think what we are doing is really good because antibiotics are needed and it is really good fun finding the seaweed and doing the research.’
Ollie and his friends are among the first people in the British Isles to use a new toolkit, which includes testing equipment and comes with an app explaining how to undertake tests and record the findings using a Smart phone, taking images at every stage. The user then sends the results to Imperial College London.
