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MSEF In The NewsScience morphs, so does fair
Sunday, March 17, 2004 By KELLY ROUBA Trenton
Times Staff Writer LAWRENCE
- For Steinert High School senior Meaghan White, an advanced placement
biology course led her to study the effects of smoking on household pets
and enter her findings in the 51st Mercer County Science and Engineering
Fair. White
was one of 550 students to enter science projects in the fair held
Monday at Rider University. For White, who plans to major in biology in
college, the real reward was gaining experience. By doing a survey of
smokers with pets and doing related research, White found, "Smoking
definitely has an affect on your pet. It triples their chance of
developing cancer." Kasia
Zabawa, another Steinert senior explored whether birth weight was a
factor in academic achievement. She
began her project after reading an article in the British Medical
Journal about how IQ is related to birth weight. As
part of her research, Zabawa surveyed fellow seniors asking their age,
gender, grade point average and Scholastic Aptitude Test scores. "I
wanted to have a more functional approach to everyday life and how kids
perform in school," she said. The study is more concerned with
academic performance than IQ scores, she said. As
to whether birth weight and academic achievement are related, Zabawa
says, "There is no positive correlation whatsoever, based on my
results." The
Engineers Club of Trenton sponsored the event for public school or
home-schooled students in grades 4 through 12 in Mercer County. Marc
Halfon, director of judges, said the fair is a way of "encouraging
the involvement of students in the fields of science." Halfon,
a chemist, said physics once dominated the competition but student
interest has changed and now most entries are in environmental,
behavioral, social and health sciences and medicine - areas that are
"important for the future of the country. A lot of the challenges
we face are technological." Projects
ranged from product testing to animal behavior to the environment. Some
topics were: how memory relates to gender, pollution's affect on
photosynthesis, water usage in bath versus showers, the effects of
smoking on blood pressure and pulse, whether listening to classical
music helps improve test scores and how the environment affects the
body. About
150 awards are to be made by the judges. High
school seniors were on hand to answer judges' questions in selection of
best-in-show and a prize of an all-expense-paid trip to compete in the
Intel International Science Fair in Portland, Ore., in May. The
award winners were to be announced last night. For additional
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