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APS
Recognizes Outstanding High School Research |
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From Left to Right |
From Left to Right |
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APS
Recognizes Outstanding High School Research |
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From Left to Right |
From Left to Right |
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The 51st Annual International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) was held in Detroit, MI, on May 7-13, 2000, and brought together
1,030 of the top high school science fair projects from around the U.S.
and from 35 other countries from Australia to Venezuela.
Students competed across 14 categories of scientific disciplines,
including Mathematics, Biochemistry, Medicine and Health, Gerontology, and
Zoology. Over 1,200 students
presented their individual or team efforts with the hope of garnering
national recognition and a portion of the more than $2.4 million awarded
by ISEF’s chief sponsor Intel, and the Fair’s sixty other affiliated
societies, universities, and professional organizations.
As in past years, the American Physiological Society provided cash
awards plus APS student memberships to those outstanding participants
whose projects fell within the broad domain of physiological research.
To date, APS is the only FASEB member society participating in this
event. APS is joined in the Special Awards category by Sigma Xi, the
Endocrine Society, all branches of the Armed Forces, among many others.
The APS on-site judging team was drawn primarily from the
Department of Physiology at Wayne State University School of Medicine.
These local APS members included department chair Dr. Joseph Dunbar and his
colleagues Drs. Heidi
Collins, Stephen DiCarlo, David Lawson,
and Douglas Yingst.
They were joined in Detroit’s Cobo Convention Center by
Dr. Andrew Lechner, from the Department of Pharmacological and
Physiological Science at Saint Louis University School of Medicine in St.
Louis. As a member of the APS Education Committee, Lechner served as APS
lead judge and awards presenter. The judging team first identified the top
60 candidates based on scientific content, before selecting nine students
for interviews at their poster displays.
Based on the scientific rigor of each study and the students’
abilities to describe their work and answer questions from the team, the
APS judges awarded First Place to Ellyn Anne Easley for her project, “Effects of Cryoprotectants on
the Revivification of Frozen Insects”. Ms. Easley, a senior at
Alamogordo High School in Alamogordo, NM, will use her $1,000 prize to
pursue a biology curriculum this fall at the University of New Mexico in
Albuquerque. APS members were most impressed with the multifactorial
scientific and statistical evaluation that Ellyn had conducted during the
course of her three years’ research on this subject, which was performed
almost entirely in her high school and home. Of note, she achieved over
92% survival of frozen crickets using the empirically derived combination
of subcuticular injection of glycerol, liquid nitrogen immersion, and
rewarming at 50°C.
The APS Second Place Award of $500 went to Ahmed
S. Mousa, a sophomore at Avon Grove High School in West Grove, PA.
Mr. Mousa, who finished fourth among APS awardees at ISEF 1999 in
Philadelphia, had extended his earlier work on “Discovery of
Angiogenesis Inhibition by Garlic”. Ahmed’s infectious enthusiasm for
research led him to develop a novel in
situ model in which endothelial cell proliferation was assayed in
chick chorioallantoic membranes, using alliin extracted from whole garlic
cloves. Third and Fourth Place APS Awards of $500 each were earned
respectively by Kimberly J.
Buehring, a junior at Banquete High School in Banquete, TX, and Jerri
L. Ahrens, a senior at North Toole County High School in Sunburst, MT.
Ms. Buehring’s project, “Succulent Solution to a Burning
Problem”, involved her isolation over the past three years of an
effective ultraviolet retardant from the upper cuticle of succulents
belonging to the genus Lithops.
She used earthworms (Lumbricus terrestrii) as experimental subjects and devised a novel
injury rating scale to determine that the Lithops
extract was significantly more effective than currently available
commercial products included in popular sunscreens.
Ms. Ahrens’ project, “Reducing Lethal Ultraviolet Radiation
Damage Using Antioxidants”, demonstrated the relative merits of
isoflavones, vitamin C, and selenium in protecting fruit flies when added
to the media that were fed to the insects. Jerri hopes to major in
computer science when she begins classes this fall at Montana State
University in Billings.
In addition to these four finalists, the APS also awarded each of
the other five interviewed students a one-year complimentary APS
membership and subscriptions to The
Physiologist and to News in
Physiological Sciences. These
additional students with projects of exceptional merit included: Lindsay
D. Breedlove, a senior at Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, OH
(“Hyperglycemia Induces Oxidative Stress and Caspase Activity”); Allison Gattis, a junior at Farmington High School in Farmington,
NM (“Absorbance of Aluminum in the Brain of Gallus
domesticus and Its Effects on Neuron Development in the Cerebral
Hemispheres”); Kimberly E. Olvey,
a senior at Lake Brantley High School in Altamonte Springs, FL (“Effect
of Platelet-Tumor Cell Interactions through CD40 and Its Ligand on Tumor
Cell Procoagulant Activity”); Nadia
Rivera-Lebron, a sophomore at Colegio Marista in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico
(“Role of Nitric Oxide in the Proliferation of Endothelial Cells”);
and Kan Zhang, a junior at the Health Careers High School in San
Antonio, TX (“Estrogen Stimulates Gap Junction-Mediated Intercellular
Communication in Osteocytes”). In
addition to the nine students, their primary high school science mentors
also received APS subscriptions, CD’s containing K-12 lesson plans, and
educational packets for use in their classrooms.
The 52nd Annual ISEF is scheduled for May 6-11, 2001, in
San Jose, CA. Any APS members
wishing to volunteer to serve as local judges should contact Marsha Matyas (301) 634-7132
or mmatyas@the-aps.org in the APS
Education Office. Providing
recognition awards to these deserving high school students is only one of
the many ways in which APS supports pre-college science education.
The APS also supports
K-12 science educators with programs designed
to increase science teachers’ curriculum content and pedagogical skills.
Among APS programs for such teachers are workshops and materials
for K-4 teachers through the
“My Health, My World” program coordinated
with Baylor University in Texas. Grant-funded
programs, such as the
“Frontiers in Physiology” and
“Explorations in
Biomedicine”, support middle school and high school teachers who work
during the summer directly with APS members in their research
laboratories. “Explorations”
is specifically designed for teachers in Montana who teach primarily
Native American students. “Frontiers,”
which is offered to teachers nationwide, also supports local workshops on
physiology topics for middle and high school science teachers.
For more information about APS education programs, send an e-mail
to education@the-aps.org or visit our website at
http://www.the-aps.org/education/edu_k12.htm.
Submitted by Dr. Andy Lechner on behalf of the APS Education Committee |
Update.
. . Another former APS awardee was also in attendance this year in Detroit. Rishikesh Dalal, now a senior at Shawnee Mission Northwest High School in Shawnee Mission, KS and the APS second-place winner in 1999, had embarked this year on a new project, “Putative role of chemokine receptors and viral protein R in Th-2 cytokine-mediated pathogenesis of simian HIV”. Like Ms. Nagarkatti, Mr. Dalal also obtained additional recognition after last year’s APS honor, including an $8,000 scholarship that he will begin using this fall at Yale University. With his ready smile, “Rishi” told Lechner how receiving the APS award in 1999 had reinforced his desire to emphasize the physiology of cell-cell interactions in his present study. “Please thank your society for taking the time to acknowledge my efforts and those of the other students here – everyone who stops to look, everything you say and ask us about our work, it matters a lot!” Thus, all three of last year’s nongraduating APS awardees in Philadelphia, including Ahmed Mousa (see main story), had returned to Detroit in 2000 for another round of outstanding high school science research. |
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Back to K-12 Resources and Programs Page Page updated on 7/08/2005 |
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