Student scientists explore at state fair

Thirty-one Pinellas students display science projects at the State Science and Engineering Fair of Florida.

By DONNA WINCHESTER

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 30, 2001

Amanda Boller was concerned when she read about plans to dredge Lake Seminole. She suspected there was a better way to solve its muck buildup problem, and she didn't mind getting dirty to find out if she was right.

The 18-year-old Lakewood High School senior waded into the lake in September and began collecting 118 pounds of muck for her experiment. In three separate trials, she divided the organic matter among six 10-gallon tanks. She added water, plants and mosquito larvae, and laboratory-grown bacteria that she hoped would eat the muck.

Three months later, Amanda calculated that her efforts at bioremediation -- using microorganisms to recycle organic material -- resulted in a 44 percent muck reduction in the tanks without harming the plants or mosquito larvae.

Her project earned her first-place honors in the environmental science category, senior division, at the Pinellas Regional Science and Engineering Fair in February. Earlier this month, she earned second place in her category at the 46th annual State Science and Engineering Fair of Florida in Fort Myers.

Amanda was one of 31 Pinellas County middle and high school students with projects at the state science fair. Almost all the students earned "place awards" -- first- through fifth-place designation -- in a field of 823 students representing 36 Florida regions.

The competition got under way at the beginning of the school year when several thousand students entered their school science fairs, according to Bob Orlopp, secondary science supervisor for Pinellas County Schools. By mid-January, about 30 middle schools and four high schools had submitted up to 12 projects each for the regional science fair. The projects were divided into 14 categories, including behavioral and social science, medicine and health, and zoology.

A team of 80 judges, including teachers, scientists and engineers, viewed the projects at Pinellas ParkSide mall on Feb. 2 and chose the 31 students who would participate in the state science fair. They also selected one middle school and two high school best of fair projects. The high school best of fair winners, Michael Guo and Peter Nguyen, both seniors at Lakewood High, will go to the international science fair May 6-12 in San Jose, Calif.

Not every school requires students to complete science projects, which accounts for the fact that most of the entries -- and winners -- come from a small sampling of schools, Orlopp said. But students can gain more than school recognition for their efforts. They can attract the attention of corporate representatives who visit regional and state science fairs offering prize money, scholarships and summer internships to promising scholars.

This year, Amanda won a $1,000 Chuck Skoch Florida Sea Grant and a $1,000 Link Foundation scholarship. Nick Secord, another Lakewood senior, won a $7,375 Merrick scholarship to the University of Miami for his chemistry project.

Paul Dickman, a physics teacher and research coordinator at Lakewood and a regional science fair director since 1996, said the level of excellence this year was impressive.

"Years ago, anyone could do a project if they could mix chemical A with chemical B and follow the proper protocol," he said. "Today, the sophistication is unbelievable. Students in the junior division are doing projects that are more complex than high school division students were doing a few years ago."

Of the 11,000 to 12,000 students who completed science fair projects statewide this year, he said between 100 and 150 will apply for patents. He has no doubt that someday a student science fair project will produce the cure for a major disease.

Like Amanda, many students worked on projects that reflected their special interests. Peter Nguyen, first-place regional winner in senior division mathematics, got the idea for his project in a calculus lecture. While his teacher was describing a complex method for calculating a number sequence, Peter began wondering if there was an easier way to do it. He got so engrossed in solving the problem that he shelved his original project -- testing the effect of colored light on fruit flies -- to work on the math equation.

He said the project was always on his mind, even when he wasn't working on it directly, until finally, a light bulb went off in his head, and he had the answer. His efforts earned him a second-place award in mathematics at the state competition.

Crystal Moser, a seventh-grader at Southside Fundamental, also pursued a question that interested her. She grew up in Treasure Island and always wondered about gulf currents. She decided to test her theory that a "loop" current moves toward the Florida Panhandle and doubles back toward the gulf by releasing 300 bottles into the water with messages inside them. She asked anyone finding a bottle to return it to her with an explanation of where it was found.

By the end of December, she had received 23 bottles from as far away as Yankeetown. She wrote a 34-page research paper documenting that all the bottles came from cities where the loop current curves inward, proving her hypothesis correct. She won first place in the junior level earth and space science category at the regional fair and placed third in the state in her category.

Crystal's science teacher, Tempest Diane Booth-Bickford, said that participation in the science fair is good for students because it touches on all disciplines.

"We're across the curriculum when you think about a science fair project," she said. "It teaches many skills, including collecting data, problem solving, research skills and writing skills. It's an all-encompassing project."

She tells her students to find something that is their passion and then research it.

"We're trying to interest sixth- through eighth-graders in science," Booth-Bickford said. "We're looking to see if they have the desire, the tenacity to go in that direction, then we try to provide them with opportunities to explore science research."

Dr. Martin Shapiro, assistant principal and program coordinator at the Center for Advanced Technologies at Lakewood High and a regional science fair director, said the idea is for students to get hands-on, cooperative learning opportunities so they will find out how the world works.

"We can teach kids facts, but facts can change," he said. "We're trying to teach them how to ask a good question, to provide them with 21st century tools, and to teach them to use technology ethically for the benefit of humanity."

STATE WINNERS

TWENTY-SEVEN PINELLAS COUNTY STUDENTS PLACED AT THE 46TH ANNUAL STATE SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING FAIR OF FLORIDA ON FRIDAY. IN SOME CASES, MORE THAN ONE FIRST- OR SECOND-PLACE AWARD WAS GIVEN IN A CATEGORY.

SECOND-PLACE WINNERS: Vanessa Applebaum (Behavioral and Social Science), Grade 6, St. Paul's; Amanda Boller (Environmental Science), Grade 12, Lakewood High; Peter Nguyen (Mathematics), Grade 12, Lakewood High; Christina Dicus (Medicine and Health), Grade 12, Palm Harbor University High.

THIRD-PLACE WINNERS: Ian Nerney (Chemistry), Grade 6, St. Paul's; Crystal Moser (Earth and Space Science), Grade 7, Southside Fundamental; Tim Stripling (Environmental Science), Grade 7, Southside Fundamental; Justin Vickers (Earth and Space Science), Grade 12, Lakewood High; Jennifer Gasky (Medicine and Health), Grade 12, Lakewood High; Nicolette Holliday (Medicine and Health), Grade 12, St. Petersburg High.

FOURTH-PLACE WINNERS: Kristin Grotecloss (Medicine and Health), Grade 6, Southside Fundamental; Bradley Bohen (Environmental Science), Grade 7, St. Paul's; Jessica Johnson (Zoology), Grade 7, St. Paul's; Xiaojia Hua (Earth and Space Science), Grade 7, Southside Fundamental; Michael Guo (Biochemistry), Grade 12, Lakewood High; Matt Taylor (Computer Science), Grade 12, Lakewood High; Nicholas Secord (Chemistry), Grade 12, Lakewood High.

FIFTH-PLACE WINNERS: Melissa Milroy (Biochemistry), Grade 7, Southside Fundamental; Alexandra Blacker (Medicine an Health), Grade 7, St. Paul Catholic; Samantha Mooren (Chemistry), Grade 7, Bay Point Middle; Jonathan Walters (Engineering), Grade 7, Bay Point Middle; Catherine Nguyen (Biochemistry), Grade 8, Madeira Beach Middle; Jeffrey Knight (Medicine and Health), Grade 12, Lakewood High; Patrick Dugan (Botany), Grade 12, Lakewood High; Robert Leonard and Na Nguyen (Team Project), Grade 12, Lakewood High; Jessica Tipton (Botany), Grade 12, Lakewood.

REGIONAL WINNERS

THIRTY-ONE PINELLAS COUNTY STUDENTS WON AWARDS IN THE PINELLAS REGIONAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING FAIR IN FEBRUARY THAT SENT THEM ON TO THE STATE COMPETITION. IN SOME CASES, MORE THAN ONE FIRST- OR SECOND-PLACE AWARD WAS MADE IN A CATEGORY.

BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE: First Place Middle School: Vanessa Applebaum, Grade 6, St. Paul; Television Marketing Strategy: Amplitude and Volume Studies.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE: First Place Middle School: Bradley Bohen, Grade 7, St. Paul; Ace of Shades. Second Place Middle School: Bryan Bardin, Grade 8, Southside Fundamental; Water and Oil (and Plants) Don't Mix. Second Place Middle School: Tim Stripling, Grade 7, Southside Fundamental; A Comparison of Dissolution Rates of Fishhooks. First Place High School: Amanda Boller, Grade 12, Lakewood High; The Application of the Bioremediation Processes on Lake or Pond Muck at High and Low Levels of Aeration. Second Place High School: James Fleeting, Grade 9, Largo High; Retention Ponds Plus. Second Place High School: Jonathan Semach, Grade 12, Lakewood High; Can Chitin Be Used as an Effective Oil Absorbing Material?

MEDICINE AND HEALTH: First Place Middle School: Alexandra Blacker, Grade 7, St. Paul Catholic; Peripheral Vision. First Place Middle School: Kristin Grotecloss, Grade 6, Southside Fundamental; Dancers Turnout Better: The Effect of Stretching Exercises on Dancers' Turnout. First Place High School: Christina Dicus, Grade 12, Palm Harbor University High; Mitomycin C-induced Endothelial Cell Activation: Novel Implications for a Mitomycin C-induced Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome Drug Therapy. Second Place High School: Jennifer Gasky, Grade 12, Lakewood High; The Effect of Olestra on the Growth of E. coli and S. mutans. Second Place High School: Nicolette Holliday, Grade 12, St. Petersburg High; The Effects of Glutamine Deprivation on Small Intestinal Epithelial Mucosal Integrity in a Rat Model. Third Place High School: Jeffrey Knight, Grade 12, Lakewood High; The Effect of Mechanical Oscillation on the Collection of Percutaneous Cell Biopsies.

BOTANY: First Place Middle School: Allison Bride, Grade 7, Carwise Middle; Comparing the Effect of Bean Seeds Exposed to UV Light with Normal Bean Seeds on the Growth of Bean Plants. First Place High School: Patrick Dugan, Grade 12, Lakewood High; The Effects of Iodine on the Growth Chlorella. First Place High School: Jessica Tipton, Grade 12, Lakewood High; The Effects of Pyruvate and Alpha-lipoic Acid on the Germination and Growth of Cucumis sativus.

BIOCHEMISTRY: First Place Middle School: Melissa Milroy, Grade 7, Southside Fundamental; How Does Change in the Acidity of the HCl Effect the Effervescence of Alka-Seltzer? Second Place Middle School: Catherine Nguyen, Grade 8, Madeira Beach Middle; Will Different Concentrations of Sugar Affect How Quickly Water Moves Across a Semi-permeable Membrane? First Place High School and Best of Fair, high school division: Michael Guo, Grade 12, Lakewood High; Sequencing the ntcA Gene in Cyanobacteria.

EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE: First Place Middle School: Crystal Moser, Grade 7, Southside Fundamental; Message in a Bottle. Second Place Middle School: Xiaojia Hua, Grade 7, Southside Fundamental; What Type of Ground Cover Will Let the Most Amount of Water Pass Through It? First Place High School: Justin Vickers, Grade 12, Lakewood High; Relationships Between Salinity and Dissolved Organic Material, and Salinity and Fluorescence.

ZOOLOGY: First Place Middle School and Best of Fair award, middle school division: Jessica Johnson, Grade 7, St. Paul; Brainy Mice.

TEAM PROJECT: First Place High School: Robert Leonard and Na Nguyen, Grade 12, Lakewood High; The Effect of Various Plant Extracts on Staphylococcus epidermidis.

CHEMISTRY: First Place Middle School: Samantha Mooren, Grade 7, Bay Point; What Effect Does Acid Rain Have on the Soil's pH and Its Buffering Capacity? First Place Middle School: Ian Nerney, Grade 6, St. Paul; What Is the Best Charge for a Charge? First Place High School: Nicholas Secord, Grade 12, Lakewood High; The Effect of Polypyrrole, an Electrically Conductive Polymer on Polyester Fabric.

MATHEMATICS: First Place High School and Best of Fair, high school division: Peter Nguyen, Grade 12, Lakewood High; Is There an Easy Solution to Find the Result of the Summation of n to the k Power?

COMPUTER SCIENCE: First Place High School: Matthew Taylor, Grade 12, Lakewood High; The Effect of Time-slice Length on Response Time in a Multitasking Operating System.

ENGINEERING: First Place Middle School: Jonathan Walters, Grade 7, Bay Point Middle; The Effects of Load Position at Takeoff on the Thrust of Planes and Jets at a 45 Degree Incline.

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