High School Students Compete at Region I Science Fair
 Some 80 high school students from around Western Mass participated in the Region Science Fair at MCLA. See more photos here. |
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — High school students competed with a host of different projects in the 11th Annual Massachusetts Region I High School Science and Engineering Fair.
Nearly 80 students from throughout the region met in the Amsler Campus Center gymnasium at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts on Friday afternoon to present their projects to 50 expert judges.
Participants were from Berkshire Arts and Technology Public Charter School, Minnechaug Regional High School, Hoosac Valley High School, Pittsfield High School, Taconic High School, the MacDuffie School and Westfield High School.
Student projects varied from biology, behavioral and social sciences, and chemistry to computer science, mathematics and engineering
Taconic student Even Kalinowsky's project took up the lofty subject of dark matter, believed to exist in Earth's atmosphere. Kalinowsky said scientists use satellites to measure gamma radiation, an indicator of dark matter. However, Kalinowsky wanted to prove lightning may be the cause of these random gamma-ray outbursts.
Working with Siena College during a summer internship, Kalinowsky used a computer program to map the college's gamma ray readings and then tried to correlate that to lightning strikes.
Kalinowsky said he enjoyed the whole science fair experience.
"It was a lot of work but the experience of getting hands-on experience for what I want to do in the future is a good experience and got me ready for my future," he said.
BArT student Tessa Langsdale focused her project on enzymes and tested for the common enzyme catalase, using potatoes, to see how temperature and salinity affect chemical reaction.
By placing pieces of potato in cups filled with hydrogen peroxide that varied in temperature and salinity, Langsdale found that the higher the temperature the smaller the reaction.
With an interest in biology, she said the experiment was intriguing and is very applicable in medicine.
"This concept makes a lot of sense to me, and I think it has a lot of world applications, especially in medicine because of chemical reactions in the body," Langsdale said.
Taconic students Joshua Coleman and Tim Curry's project demonstrated invention. Golfers themselves, the two created a golf ball that is able to be tracked with any mobile device.
"We wanted to modify an actual golf ball so that you could actually track it on the golf course," Curry said. "It is actually waterproof so if you lose it in a pond you can fish it out."
Coleman said the most fun part of the project was hitting the ball, but all in all the research and work was all enlightening.
"It was pretty fun for the most part, but it was a lot of work and very labor intensive," Coleman said.
After the fair, keynote speaker Frank Morgan, professor of mathematics at Williams College, presented a demonstration of the mathematics behind bubbles. He then addressed the students urging them to continue their work and progress science and the world further.
"Wherever you want to go and whatever you are learning here at the science fair everything you learned about mathematics will be extremely valuable," Morgan said.
Forty of the participating students will advance to the Massachusetts State Science and Engineering Fair, to be held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in May. From there, the finalists advance to the International Science and Engineering Fair.
The top two projects form the Region I Fair will have the opportunity to attend the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
Also, students who received top scores will be given special awards from government agencies and businesses.
Tags: MCLA, science fair, STEM,
