Johnston students shine at Science and Engineering Fair

The energy at the 2015 Rhode Island Science and Engineering Fair (RISEF), held last weekend at the Community College of Rhode Island in Warwick, rivaled some of the strongest chemical reactions.

And like a catalyst’s spark, Johnston’s contingent of young scientists shined.

Nearly 250 students from Rhode Island’s middle and high schools, including Johnston High and St. Rocco, converged into CCRI’s Great Hall to present the results of their scientific investigations. Students competed for first-, second- and third-place awards, as well as scholarships.

“Today is really the culmination of between three and six months worth of work on the students’ part. Science fairs typically start in the schools in September, although some students started over the summer,” said Mark Fontaine, who has served as RISEF’s director for the last 19 years. “There’s two ways that kids wind up here usually – either they have a traditional school fair where there’s a lot of projects and winners are chosen and sent here, [or] other schools have science clubs, and they may only have four or five projects, and they all come here.”

Split between middle and high school students, the competition is comprised of junior and senior divisions, respectively.

Schools like Johnston High set up their own fairs as independent entities with their own criteria, governed by RISEF rules. This year’s state competition was scored by 166 judges, a group comprised of high school teachers, professional engineers, scientists, medical professionals and doctors.

“I think the competition is going very well. We have a lot of special community judges on the floor who are judging in their specialty career area, so our students are being put to the test, and I love that,” said Karen Fletcher, a middle school teacher and RISEF’s display and safety supervisor.

Judges used a rubric broken down into major categories – originality, scientific thought, clarity, and thoroughness, among others. Special attention is given to the students’ papers, typically 12 to 25 pages in length. They then generate a scorecard that ranged from zero to 95, which is used to tabulate winners.

Johnston High’s six participants took full advantage of the opportunity and each was awarded for their methods.

“I tested the depression point of water. What I did was freezing-point depression, which is adding solute to a substance to lower its freezing point,” said junior Jenny Jobe of her project, “Depressing the Freezing Point.” “I found that salt decreases the freezing point significantly, and that sugar decreases it as well but not as much, which is why we don’t sugar our roads in winter.”

Jobe, who may look into a career in science or possibly pursue a double major in college, was awarded 2nd Grant in the biochemistry category. She found that conducting her tests presented unforeseen challenges.

“Trying to figure out how to get all the beakers into the ice bath was difficult, because I accidentally broke a thermometer I borrowed from the school doing that,” she said.

Proving that last winter in Johnston was a rough one, sophomore Laura Wilson’s project “Let It Freeze” in the chemistry category followed a similar path.

“It’s basically about how adding different substances in water lowers the freezing point, such as when you add salt to melt ice on roads,” said Wilson, who went on to achieve 2nd Grant. “It’s about testing different substances to see which ones work most efficiently, and calcium chloride worked the best. It was a lot of work, but I sort of liked how it had more practical application to it, especially as it’s snowing today.”

Senior Taylor Russo, who plans to attend Providence College and become a criminal lawyer, explored forensics with her project, “Kastle-Meyers Test: Which Substances Contain the Trace of Blood.”

“It’s a presumptive blood test used at crime scenes to detect the trace of blood, say if you see a red substance on the ground,” said Russo, who also went on to earn 2nd Grant honors in the biochemistry category.

Edward Esposito, a senior whose project was titled “Refractive Index and Temperature,” is still waiting to hear from colleges before making his final decision and was excited to be part of the competition.

“I looked at the refractive index of water and how that was changed by temperature, such as why a straw looks broken in a cup of water,” he said prior to being judged. He went on to achieve 1st Grant.

Senior Brian Campanelli, whose medicine category entry “Hot Air and You” was hampered by the winter weather, researched the air intake of Johnston athletes.

“I was basically testing the vital lung capacity of an individual, which is based off of their athletic ability,” said Campanelli. “The toughest part was probably conducting the test itself, because of the time constraints of all the school days we had off because of weather.”

According to his results, based on Johnston’s population, football players have the best lung capacity. Judges awarded him 1st Grant.

Junior Ibrahim Abaherah’s plant sciences submission “Slippery Slope” investigated the slick surface of the carnivorous pitcher plant to see if it has technological applications.

“We can use this information to our advantage in refrigeration,” said Abaherah, who earned 1st Grant for his work. “It can also be used as to create a repellant which could prevent ice accumulations.”

Five St. Rocco students entered into the Junior Division of the competition. Victoria Reilley entered “Temperature and Crystals,” Lucas Marchetti submitted “Measuring Electricity in Light Bulbs,” Nitsa Prasith contributed “Tic Toc Pendulum,” Jenna Cassiere entered “Heat Retention and Insulation” and Spencer Merlino submitted “Hydrodynamic Hype.”

Cassiere and Marchetti received 3rd Grant while Prasith and Merlino achieved 1st Grant for their work.

Drs. Elaine and James Magyar of Rhode Island College, who’ve served as head judges for the last 15 years, were pleased with this year’s competition.

“It’s just really exciting to see every year, while we’ve been doing this over and over again, you realize that for the youngsters this is a really big deal,” Elaine said. “There are a lot of children here who have really worked hard.”