FROM SCIENCE FAIR TO SCIENCE JOURNAL Copepods, amyloids, and piezoelectric sensors were among the topics examined by Upper School students in GA’s honors science research elective. The elective is intended to teach students how to design, execute, and report on their own scientific inquiry. And for some, what started as a class project with plans to participate in a science fair became their first opportunity to be published in a scientific journal. The girls started the year by reading published scientific research papers to understand the kind of output that would be expected from their efforts. In parallel, they explored a variety of potential research topics, eventually settling on four diverse and compelling project ideas. Gayatri Nangia and Clare Ryan tested the viability of a living filter system that uses copepods (a group of small crustaceans) for managing algae bloom. Emma Morrison constructed her own piezoelectric sensors to study the efficiency of generating electricity from droplets of water versus water flows. Jadesola Ariyibi, Morgan Sorbaro, and Anushya Makam focused on tracing back the evolutionary history of the gene responsible for the production of amyloid, the protein that causes the damage to brain tissue in Alzheimer’s patients. Finally, Madeleine Jansson combined her interest in fractal structures with the resources available to her in GA’s Engineering & Design Lab. She stress tested 3D printed fractal structures to understand how theoretically identical structures yield to stress. In March, the students took the results of their research efforts to the CT State Science Fair with displays to support the oral presentations and papers written to incorporate more details into their research and design work. Of the 590 projects selected to participate in the fair, two of GA’s four projects (the living filter project and the power generation project) moved on to the round of 150 finalists, and all were considered for honors and awards. The science fair, however, was not the end of the road for the research conducted by these girls. Gayatri, Clare, and Emma went on to submit their papers to the Journal of Emerging Investigators to be considered for publication. The papers were accepted! This too became a learning experience for the girls, who received feedback on their research and suggestions on how to improve their papers from the journal’s editors. Gayatri said of the experience, “It was so exciting and encouraging that people with more experience in science found validity in our project. Also, their specific angles on how the research could be taken further and how our data could be analyzed in different ways were really interesting.” Gayatri, Clare, and Emma have all shared some background on their projects here.
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THE LIVING FILTER Gayatri Nangia ’14 and Clare Ryan ’15 Our project focused on the reduction of We designed a project that directly hypoxia, one of the environmental threats targets the HABs themselves. To do faced by the Long Island Sound. Hypoxia is this we studied everything from pool the decrease of oxygen levels in the layer of and aquarium filters to the effects of water closest to the ocean introducing a foreign Honors floor. This condition occurs species to the ecosystem. when dead algae settle to the First Honors By combining these two ocean floor and are consumed High School Finalist concepts, we came up with by decomposers through the idea of a “living filter.” cellular respiration, a process Pfizer Life Sciences Awards This living filter would (2nd Place), Life Sciences which involves the intake of consume living algae on Senior High School Team oxygen and output of carbon the surface water before dioxide into the water. Under Selected for publication they die and sink to the normal circumstances, this bottom of the ocean floor. It in the Journal of Emerging process does not lead to would consist of a filter bag Investigators hypoxia. If, however, an algae containing live copepods, a bloom occurs and the volume of algae dying group of small crustaceans. This filter bag and decomposing increases, hypoxia becomes has a pore size large enough that algae can a problem and animals begin to suffocate. enter and small enough that copepods are Harmful algae blooms (HABs) in the Long unable to exit. The water will flow through Island Sound and other waters are caused the filter bag, bringing in algae with it that by nitrate runoff and other water pollution. would be consumed by the copepods. The HABs that now affect the Long Island If our living filter is successful, it will Sound have been increasing in frequency decrease levels of living algae and thus the and duration since the 1980s. amount of dead algae causing hypoxia.
Gayatri Nangia and Clare Ryan