Genius Olympiad was once again a great way to end the year.  We made a splash at Niagara Falls and met budding scientists from around the world.  The week always  goes by so fast, but the memories will last a lifetime! 

Being asked to represent Edgemont at NYSSEF is an honor in and of itself, as it takes being prepared, creating an additional video presentation and perfect paperwork.  I am so proud of how our mini team placed and we all had a great time at the NY Hall of Science!

NYSSEF 2025 Award List

3rd Place

Vasu Jain- Biomedical Sciences

Richa Patil- Neurology

Jonathan Sungjae Cho- Cellular and Molecular Science

Honorable Mention

Ananya Shah- Mathematics

We are all so proud of you and hope you make it to the top 40! You have what it takes!

Scholars were chosen based on their outstanding research, leadership skills, community involvement, commitment to academics, creativity in asking scientific questions and exceptional promise as STEM leaders demonstrated through the submission of their original, independent research projects, essays and recommendations. The 300 scholars hail from 200 American and international high schools and homeschools in 33 states, Washington D.C., Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Switzerland.

Kento Hong’s project “Investigating the Effects of Hemarthrosis on the Structure and Function of ACL Repair” is  commendable and we are very proud of him for receiving this recognition by the Regeneron Science Talent Search.

Over the summer please reach out non stop with everything you are experiencing, good, bad and challenging!  I want your summer research time to be one of growth and support.  When in doubt, reach out. 

Asa Miller, Zahra Sadoughi, Richa Patil, Vidhan Bokaria and Kevin Xu all represented the science scholars program at RIT June 11-14th.  They had a great time meeting friends from around the world!  Asa and Zahra took home 2nd place, and Richa had an honorable mention!  I could not have asked for a more wonderful, fun group of students to go with Ms. Kim and myself.  

We had another amazing year working with Untermyer Garden for their Illumination Celebration.  We handed out hundreds of cups of cocoa and were responsible for manning their opening night!  This is really a great time to reflect on how lucky we are to have such great people in the program and to kick off the post WESEF application season! Thank you to all who helped out! 

Please let me know if you have an interest in this mentorship opportunity working in bio-med and pharmacology.  Nomination Process and Criteria: Students must be in their sophomore or junior year of high school during the 2025-2026 academic year to be eligible to apply for the 2025 High School Mentorship Program. Furthermore, students must be nominated by their science teacher or school administrator to apply. We will be sending nomination instructions via email to all the teachers in our distribution list on Wednesday, November 1st. The nominations will be due on Thursday, November 18th Click here for their slide show from last year.

I am so happy to see you all again, it feels like we haven't missed a beat!

Please see This Link for a virtual Welcome back folder!  Please note, you must be signed into your Edgemont account to access this. Thank you!  -Ms. Dardis

We always need respondents for our work! Please give a few minutes and help someone's research! 

Please click above for meeting dates and STS info!

A wonderful night of science and cotton candy!

Our first trip to NYSSEF at the Hall of Science was a great success! Eddie Major, Bella Jabbour, Ryan Dalal all placed 3rd!  Sasha Zengin Karaian was honorable mention!  I am so proud of all the barriers our amazing science scholars are breaking and all the great work they are doing! I could not be prouder of my team.  2023 has been a wonderful year so far! 

A handful of our regional speakers for this year's JSHS were able to present their slides in a really welcoming, friendly atmosphere at Fox Lane during the first ever county wide JSHS practice event!  New friends, both scientific and from the amphibian world were made!  It is always great to meet other students from area schools who share our passion, curiosity and love of research!

We are overwhelmingly proud of our 12!! seniors who placed as Regional Speakers for the January 28th JSHS competition! We are rooting you on along with our local speakers! Please ask any science scholar senior for a chance to hear their power point presentation. They need 50 practices! Special congrats again to : Leah Vinodh, Nayyab Waleed, Daniel Lee, Jiya Singh, Nuanyang Wang, Ronik Malik, Anisha Musti, Albert Li, Rajan Sandhu, Miriam Kim, Yansi Foong, and Vivien Wong! 

We had another great time handing out hot cocoa and chilling with the Grinch at our second annual Untermyer volunteer night!   Can't wait for next year! 

Here is our slide show for the night!  See you in room A8.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1a7WxYuOs8rxI_dYAZu9ppv0DN-mKzWwu/edit#slide=id.p2

Welcome back to another year of being Edgemont's shining stars! I can't wait to see you again and to hear all about your summer adventures!

Please click on your year's information link above to find a digital copy of what is in your welcome packet! 

Make sure your resume is updated, and please start thinking about  asking recommenders in person and then following up with a thank you email. 

1. Educator Recommendation (up to 2) 

a. Educator Recommendation should be completed online by the person with the most  knowledge of the student in an academic setting and of their scientific potential. Students may  choose a non-science teacher, and if they choose to submit two of this type of  

recommendation, may select a coach or other type of advisor as the second Educator  Recommender. 

2. Project Recommendation (up to 2) 

a. Project Recommendation should be completed online by the person closest to the student’s  research. The head of a lab should only complete this if they worked with the student  closely. 

b. Project Recommenders might be asked to provide information and documentation about  projects involving humans and vertebrate animals. 

3. High School Report 

a. Talk to or email your guidance counselor and let them know that you will be emailing them  with instructions from our online system regarding your high school transcript. The sender  name should be completed online by a counselor or administrator. Official high school  transcripts must be uploaded in this section. Counselors must upload transcripts on the high  school report as PDFs. Mailed, hard copies are not accepted. 

b. NEW: Counselors are now asked to complete a series of school profile questions just once for  all of their entrants, rather than for each entrant. We hope this will save time. Counselors only  need to do this once, then upload each transcript. 

c. NEW: Students who would like to submit a second transcript from a college course may now  submit these on their own via the online application.

ALSO: Here is a goggle doc of the STS application for you to use a rough draft. We will be working on this in class when you get back along with writing up your research papers, so the more you can do on your down time, the better!  STS application are DUE to their system Nov. 9th (Advait, this is true.) Our soft due date will be October 24th, with a loss of credit for each day late. 

Thank you for all the great summer check ins! I feel like I'm in the lab with you all and it is fascinating! A few of you have asked form questions, so please refer to the box below with more detailed form info!

I thought I would give a little update about my summer, too! I am having a great time in the UK, and am enjoying seeing a lot of flora (plants) that we do not have in NY! And all the tea! On that note, I just wanted to remind everyone to constantly question- I saw this on a box of tea here in Edinburgh  (see photo) and it started my mind wondering, what are they adding to this tea to compensate for Scottish water?  How is their water different than ours? How does geology and history impact everyday life?  And why don't we have all the cute words for stuff they have here?  Keep enjoying your summer and follow your inspiration! Email me!

Also, let me know if you would like to have a scholars summer event once I get back! Maybe a tea taste testing?

Make sure to complete our "form form."

This page has info about the forms (green highlighted forms need to be dated before your work starts.)

Check out these other ideas for making the most of your summer here. 

Keep your binder on your mind! 

In-coming 10th graders- Welcome! here is your summer reading assignment!

Here is the reading spreadsheet, please make a copy for yourself and enjoy!  

Very Important Dates 2022-2023: Course Requirement Dates: (mandatory participation: 

Somers= 10th and 12th, WESEF= 11th and 12th and JSHS=12th)

STS Seniors only: applications due Nov 9th 

(make a copy of this google doc for your rough drafts and save in our shared folder!)

JSHS Seniors only: Paperwork Due November 21, 2022

JSHS: Seniors only: The symposium will be hosted by John Jay High School, Cross River, NY on Saturday, January 28, 2023 with a weather reserve date of Sunday, January 29, 2023, hopefully in person, but switch to virtual is possible

WESEF In person, 11th and 12th graders March 18th, poster set up night and March 17th, Awards ceremony Thursday March 23rd! Held at Somers

Symposium: a night of elegance and science

April 27th 5:30-8:30.

Somer’s - In person, Sophomores and 12th graders- Reserve the first Saturday in June, tentative date, in person.

FUN PRACTICE NIGHTS

JSHS practice January 9th

WESEF prep night February 9th

DECA WESEF Shark Tank March 9th

Don't forget your 9 tasks for success!

Over the summer- 9* tasks to make fall as fun as summer!

*10 for rising seniors.

1. Keep up with articles!

2.  Complete and log your 100 hours! 

3. Take photos of your lab, with colleagues, with signs of your institution, or at home with your laptop!  You must have 10 photos at the end of summer.

4. Update research plan!  Write it in the future tense and add DETAILS.

5. Let me know ANY updates, problems, achievements, questions! You MUST email me 4 times over the summer with updates- even if things are going fine. 

6. Print out material for your binder! This MUST be saved in our shared folder.

7. Think of VISUALS- diagrams that will add clarity to you presentations

8. Sign up for google news alerts on your topic!! 

9. Think of a 1-2 minute elevator pitch about your project

10*. Rising seniors:  STS prep questions!

The 10th grade first year science research scholars had an amazing showing at this year's Somers Science Fair! It was such fun day of showing off our background knowledge and our amazing posters!  

Here are our placements!  I am so proud of all of you and your hard work! 

Here is a fabulous montage of some of the Somer's action! 

Biochem

1st place

Rania Malik

Mick Barron

Computer Science 

First place

Ryan Dalal

Second Place

Jack Liu

Engineering 

3rd place

Augustus Cai 

Medicine

First place

Lina Hoef

Chemistry 

3rd place

Amratya Jain

Behavioral 

1st place

Sasha Zengin Karaian

3rd

Ethan Wu

Read about our areas of research and what current and past scholars have accomplished

May 21st, Edgemont High Library

Monday night was a special night for our program- we were able to celebrate 26 years of science research together, in person!  Dr. Parsa Mirhaji, MD PhD, was our keynote speaker and presented a pressing and informative look at how we live, and will live, with machine learning.  After ending on the note of how important creativity and compassion are going to be in the future job market we broke out into the 10th grade poster rooms!  Lina Hoef won 1st place for her presentation, with David Barlow in 2nd, Jack Liu and Josh Kim tying for 3rd.  It was a wonderful way for us to prepare for the excitement of Somer's, June 4th!

Selected 11th graders were also able to share their wonderful work, and I could tell the audience learned a lot!

Nishita Uppuluri gave a touching speech.  We capped off the night with senior awards.  We had an amazing spread of food, and we are all so grateful for all the support and help we have from the Edgemont community.  The whole night was a tribute to the 6 pillars that we build our program on: creativity, focus, dedication, perseverance, preparation, and camaraderie.  Thank you to everyone who made it, and thank you to our scholars who made it SUPER!

Anisha Musti and her quantum physics project about qubits will be representing Edgemont at the 2022 ISEF in Atlanta in May!  Please click here to read all about it!

Anisha Musti was Edgemont's 2022 ISEF finalist! Click here to see the virtual fair and her virtual booth! 

What a wonderful time we had at Dobb's Ferry collecting water samples for Cornell's invasive fish survey project! We tested 3 sites at our location and ran quality control for the equipment!  In a few months we will find out if there was any invasive fish (Asian Carp) DNA in our samples! Thank you to all the students who came out and all the parents who had driving duty!  Next event...maybe a mini pumpkin sale for October?