When Nina P started her award-winning science experiment on marine snails, the only fact she knew for sure was that the snails “would gross [her] brother out”.

But at the conclusion of her study, the Year 10 Hornsby Girls High School student had successfully supported her claim that changes in salinity levels – as a consequence of global warming and rising sea levels – could prove devastating to the snail, Nerita atramentosa.

Nina won the 2007 Science Teachers Association of NSW Young Scientist of the Year award for her study which examined how salinity levels affected the snails’ ability to grasp onto a surface.

The snails typically live on rocky outcrops in inter-tidal zones.

Using different salinity levels during a six-month study, Nina discovered the snails’ foot strength – or tenacity – improved in line with increases in salinity.

Yet the snails had greater difficulty clinging onto surfaces in less salty water.

“As sea levels rise [from melting ice-caps] and run-off increases, this will reduce the salinity levels and the snails’ habitat will be disturbed leaving them vulnerable to predators,” Nina said.

Carole Stanford, coordinator of the Young Scientist of the Year Award, said Nina’s study was of a very high standard.

“What is unusual amongst Year 10 students is that very few of them calculate more than an average,” Ms Stanford said.

“What she did was ask a few more questions … she was wondering if the size of the snails had something to do with it so she performed regression plots with her data.” In addition to the main award, Nina picked up the National Measurement Institute Measurement Award and the STEP Environment Award during the presentations.

She was also awarded first place in biology in the Year 10 to 12 category.

Hornsby Girls High School principal Robert Phillips said the school community was overjoyed with Nina’s win in the competition, which is open to public and private school students.

“Apart from being a wonderful young woman, she’s a fantastic student and certainly an excellent science student,” Mr Phillips said.

Nina, who used to conduct home experiments and make “volcanoes” when she was younger, said she hoped to continue her interest in science after completing high school.

“I’d like to become a marine biologist or a geneticist and I think this is a good step towards having a scientific career,” she said.