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By Gianna Maltbie, Around the Horn Editor (2024)
Image Courtesy of @ccsdschools Instagram
By November 8, 10 Clarkstown North Seniors submitted to the Regeneron STS, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science research competition for high school students. Regeneron STS recognizes the nation’s most promising young scientists who are developing ideas that could solve societal issues. To complete this feat, students must complete original research projects that require hundreds of hours of work and years to complete. These ten students include Savannah Angamarca, Chris Anil, Laura Bialek, Izabella Blanco, Jessica Charalel, Ethan Frank, Morgan Grant, Ritika Pawar, Siya Prashad, and Jonathan Thomas.
Here is an inside look into some of the students’ research.
Izabella Blanco
I studied the relationship of nitrate, phosphate, and pH levels across locations, time of year, and overall values for six months at Congers Lake. My greatest difficulty happened to be collecting my data because I had to avoid it when it rained because the rain would skew my data. That ended up happening, but this summer it rained a lot, so I couldn't take samples on the ideal date. The rain diluted the nitrate and phosphate levels throughout my sample collection as it can be seen in my data graphs how the values all drop significantly after the major rainfalls this past summer.
I actually hope to use my experience of three years of Science Research in college to research one of the topics I went through during my time in the class, such as nanoparticle drug delivery systems as a cure for cancer, or genetic therapy as a cure for cystic fibrosis in children. I hope to be able to publish while in college, and if that doesn't work out within my four years in undergrad, I hope that when I am in dental school studying to be an orthodontist, I get my research done, and that it ends up getting published.
Jessica Charalel
I always loved marine biology as a child, and I recently developed an interest in computer science, so being able to combine those two areas of study in one research paper through computer modeling was perfect for my project. I look forward to developing new computational models in areas of biology in college as a computer science major.
Laura Bialek
The purpose of my project was to examine the relationship between early parental healthcare choices, including vaccinations, and young adult decisions regarding current healthcare choices and a reflective view of healthcare choices made on their behalf. My survey answered the following questions:
Is there a relationship between vaccination choice and parental influence?
Do people under the age of 18 want the ability to make their own vaccination decisions?
Is there a difference in vaccination responses dependent upon gender?
This survey received over 500 responses which I analyzed and documented using Google Sheets.
Students worked so hard on their projects over the course of three years. Students learned to collect data, read scientific articles, and propose change to the scientific community. Without these young minds, change wouldn’t be possible.
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