Three years in a row, this fifth grader has turned his interest in video games into a winning science investigation. For Xavier, a new science project assignment is a great opportunity to learn about another aspect of game design and development—and have fun at the same time. Game on!

When it comes to cutting-edge science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, a lot of weight is being thrown into turning the student-generation's engagement with video games into a direct conduit for scientific exploration and innovation. Rather than forcing kids to turn off the games, companies like AMD, through their AMD Changing the Game Initiative, and other proponents of Change the Equation, advocate encouraging students to dig in deep and explore various angles of game design, game mechanics, and game play. If students, teachers, and parents all come to the video game playing field with an understanding that there're a lot to learn from playing games, the win-win combination can score big points for students in terms of science education and in sparking new interest in science and technology.

Science Buddies in Action

Xavier Downey, a fifth grade student in Hesperia, CA, is an avid gamer. He's into current versions of Pokémon and enjoys going to bat in Mario Super Sluggers. Despite his affinity for his DS and Wii, at eleven, Xavier is also a veteran science fair participant. What stands out about Xavier's science fair history is that his last three science fair projects have all been about video game-related topics. Beyond simply turning "game" into schoolwork, Xavier has taken top honors each year at both his school and district fairs, showing that while the science of gaming can be fun, the projects students pursue in this area can go head-to-head with science projects in other, more traditional, areas of science.

Xavier and his mom are big fans of Science Buddies. After discovering the Science Buddies website at the onset of his third grade project, they've returned each year to search for a hot gaming topic for the science fair and to use Science Buddies resources for guidance, including the Ask an Expert forums. From Xavier's perspective, Science Buddies has given him an edge in terms of developing and completing competitive and successful projects. He's understandably excited about all those first place ribbons, but he's even more enthusiastic about the fact that with each of his projects, he's gotten to explore the science behind something he loves—video games.

"The best part of all is that the projects I chose to do were all video-game-related science projects! I got to play video games and do school work at the same time! I actually wanted to do school work and research all the time for my science projects," says Xavier. "I couldn't have done it without the help of Science Buddies. Learning has never been so much fun!"

A Gamer's Science Fair

Using the Topic Selection Wizard, Xavier turned up his first video game project in 2010. The "Sweating the Score: Can Video Games Be a Form of Exercise?" project let him explore, firsthand, whether or not popular "exercise" games (exergames), a genre advanced by the availability of platforms like the Wii and Kinect, actually qualify as exercise for players. He followed that project with "No Pain, Lots of Game" in 2011, a project that investigates game-playing as an alternative to medications for pain management.

With two gaming projects behind him, with human physiology and neurology components, respectively, Xavier tackled another question related to video games this year in the "Out of Control" project. In this project, Xavier switched his attention to game design and hardware and compared the effectiveness of controllers that mimic their intended functionality (like a steering wheel for a car racing game) to traditional controllers.

As Xavier learned, traditional control schemes use an "abstract" interface in which players use a series of buttons or directional sequences and combinations to achieve on-screen effects. To successfully play the game, these controls have to be learned (and memorized). Diehard gamers may find these controls instinctive, as they often build upon familiar controls from other games, but such controls can be confusing and difficult to master for new gamers. In an attempt to lower the learning curve and reach a wider audience, game development companies have introduced new interfaces that involve "natural mapping." The idea is that if you know how to play tennis on a real court, then clicking a tennis racket-shaped attachment to your remote and swinging it to play a game of tennis can be easier to learn and more inviting to play because the action mimics reality.

Gaming for Everyone

Xavier's background research on video game history gave him a better understanding of the ways in which game controllers have rapidly changed as the gaming industry has grown. "I learned exactly how far video game controllers have changed from the first one-button joysticks to [the] motion sensing remotes of today," says Xavier. With that history in mind, and with an understanding of the differences between natural and abstract mapping schemes, Xavier put his hypothesis that natural mapping control schemes make it easier for a non-gamer to learn a game—and result in higher scores—to the test. Recruiting the help from non-gamers in his family, including his parents, aunts, and uncles, and armed with his knowledge of game control theory, Xavier had his volunteers play a Wii-based racing game that uses a steering wheel.

After analyzing the data he gathered while observing his family members play the game, Xavier found that his testing supported his hypothesis. "This year I learned that a video game controller that mimics a real-life action makes it easier and faster for an inexperienced video game player to learn the video game, rather than trying to remember what button does what using a push-button traditional video game controller," he explains. His experiment encouraged Xavier to step out of the role of player and look at the big picture driving video game design and development. Based on his testing and observations, he has some insight into where gaming may be headed. "Technology continues to improve and advance," says Xavier. "This project showed me [that] motion-based controllers are the future of gaming," he adds, noting that controllers and control schemes have already evolved since the introduction of the first motion sensor remotes.

A Winning Combination

Continuing his string of science fair successes, Xavier's fifth grade project won first place at both his school and district science fairs. He also won a gold medal in the fifth grade division at his county fair, the RIMS Inland Science and Engineering Fair. In addition to the academic success, Xavier's experiment also had another winning outcome. Because of his project, some of his "non-gamer" family members realized that gaming can actually be a lot of fun. "After having so much fun playing [the racing] game, my Mom, my Aunt, and my Grandma all think video games are fun," enthuses Xavier. "And now we have Wii Sports bowling competitions!"

For Xavier, video game science projects give him the chance to really dive into a topic of interest, even as he explores different areas of science, engineering, and human behavior. "The best part of my project was that it gave me an excuse to have to play video games—it's for school! I was having fun, learning, [and] doing a science experiment and school work all at the same time."

By Kim Mullin

Tracking wild Minnesota wolves for your 6th-grade science project? When you live in Louisiana? As this animal enthusiast discovered, with the availability of online data and a Science Buddies Zoology Project Idea, you don't have to live "near" wolves to study them.

Animal Movement Study Makes for a 'Wild' First Project

Dakota LeMaire, a sixth grade student in Louisiana, was on the hunt for a science project when he came across Science Buddies' Where the Wild Wolves Wander Project Idea. Since he is a dog- and wolf-lover, Dakota was excited to discover this unique project.

With the information provided in the Project Idea, Dakota's mom ordered a wolf tracking activity booklet and map from the International Wolf Center. Then, Dakota tapped into the online Track Wild Wolves Database to record the historical movement of two wolves that had been fitted with radio collars. The information from the wolves' collars had been recorded over a period of about two years. Dakota's job was to record and analyze the data to discover how far the wolves traveled at various times of the year.

Marking his map with different colors for each wolf in each season required attention and precision, but Dakota loved the process. "I learned that wolves travel very far in the winter," says Dakota. "It was fun to work on this with my parents, and a great opportunity to learn more about something that I already loved!"

Dakota's project was a howling success. After first place wins at both his school and parish fairs, he attended a regional science fair where he garnered third place in Animal Science. Overall, Dakota describes his first science project as "easy, fun, and a wonderful experience."

Read about other student science successes in the Science Buddies in Action area.

Nithin Tumma, a previous student mentor at Science Buddies, wins Intel Science Talent Search for cancer research project.

Each year, thousands of students complete science projects and participate in science fairs around the country—and around the world. With the national spotlight on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education fueled by the Educate to Innovate campaign, Change the Equation, and the Google Science Fair, now in its second year, the science fair scene is evolving, but there are two competitions in the U. S. that stand among all others as pinnacles of science success: the Intel Science Talent Search (STS) and the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF).

The winners of this year's Intel Science Talent Search were announced last week, and Science Buddies was thrilled to learn that the top award went to Nithin Tumma, a senior at Port Huron Northern High School in Port Huron, Michigan. There were cheers all around when we heard the news because Nithin volunteered at Science Buddies as a high school mentor in our Ask an Expert forum last year and won the Craig Sander Outstanding Mentor Award for his contributions.

Advanced Student Science

Nithin's project for this year's Intel Science Talent Search deals with slowing the growth of breast cancer cells, a step which may aid in treating the disease. "I studied protein interactions during the progression of leukemia and breast cancer," explains Nithin, "and discovered possible therapeutic targets to slow the growth and spreading of the cancers."

His project built upon research he began working on last summer at Stony Brook University as a Simons Fellow. Prior to his Stony Brook fellowship, Nithin was a finalist at ISEF three years in a rows and won Best of Category and first place honors in the Cellular and Molecular Biology category last year for his project, "Identifying Novel Mechanisms of Cytochrome-P450 2E1 Regulation," a study of the ways in which insulin or metformin (two drugs commonly used to treat Type 2 diabetes) alters Cyp2E1, a liver enzyme that helps eliminate carcinogens.

In a letter Nithin wrote last year after his ISEF success, he put his own cumulative science fair experience in perspective. "Science fairs provide an opportunity to experience learning on a different level, a hands on approach that helps develop a deep, true understanding of subject matter. The topics that I know the most about are the topics that I have spent time researching, from global warming in seventh grade to the connections between diabetes and liver cancer, my current study."

This year, he adds breast cancer to the list of topics in which he has immersed himself with advanced student science projects and joins an elite group of young scientists who have been named finalists and winners of the Intel Science Talent Search.

"When I heard, I was totally taken aback," says Nithin. "I had no idea that I would win, and I truly think that any of the 40 kids just as easily could have taken home the first prize. At first I was shocked, then elated as it started to sink in."

Commitment to Science

While community service is increasingly valued among high school students (and incoming student admissions boards), not all students engaged in advanced research and preparing for top-level competition have time for one in-depth community project, much less several. Nithin has devoted time and energy to fostering science education in his community, to volunteering at Science Buddies, and to restoring historical and cultural landmarks as part of his work with the Port Huron Museum.

Passionate about science and the importance of high school science, Nithin didn't sit quietly when his local science fair disbanded due to funding and participation issues. Wanting to encourage advanced science activity at the student level—and hoping to foster interest in science among middle school students—Nithin started a science club at a local middle school. The club meets twice a month, beginning at the start of the school year, and encourages students to work on year-long science projects. In its first year, Nithin was excited to find that he had tapped into a wealth of interest in science. Students wanted an avenue for pursuing in-depth research and showcasing it at a fair. "We ended up having about 45 projects to present at a district science fair that I help set up," says Nithin.

He credits mentoring at Science Buddies as a student Expert in the Ask an Expert volunteer program with helping him recognize and understand the "teacher" within him. His experience at Ask an Expert, he says, also helped him better articulate science—both his own and scientific concepts he spent time explaining in answering questions from other students.

A Glimpse at Tomorrow

In an announcement of the winners issued by Intel, Wendy Hawkins asks... which of the 40 finalists from this years STS will go on to someday win a Nobel Prize? With the kind of talent, research, and dedication demonstrated by Nithin and other STS finalists this year, it is a question of merit and one supported by the growing list of past STS participants who have gone on to win Nobel Prizes. It's an impressive group. As Hawkins wrote: "We do know that the 40 finalists assembled here this week are well on their way to becoming science game changers. They are talented, brilliant, passionate, and they are able to communicate that passion and the science they care so deeply about to others in terms we can all understand—a necessary talent for an aspiring scientist."

We at Science Buddies are proud to have young scientists like Nithin as part of our team of volunteers!

Jackie, a tenth grade student and avid Girl Scout, is on a dual-headed quest to spark excitement about science in middle school students—and to earn the Girl Scouts' highest award.

When you think of Girl Scouts, you may immediately think of favorite cookies from yearly cookie sales, or maybe the familiar green uniform and patch-emblazoned sashes come to mind, a visual mark both of membership and of commitment. While cookie sales and badges are hallmarks of the organization, for many young women, being a Girl Scout is an important and formative activity, one that often begins in elementary school and continues for many years. Part social and part social responsibility, Girl Scouts enjoy the camaraderie of being part of a group and, at the same time, they engage in a variety of activities and challenges that help build confidence, self-esteem, leadership skills, and social awareness. With "Be prepared" as their motto and "Do a good turn daily" as their slogan, the Girl Scout organization and experience encourages young women to make positive contributions to society. It's been their mission since the founding in 1912, and with a membership of more than 3.2 million, the Girl Scouts are making a difference in communities around the world.

For Girl Scouts who continue throughout their high school years, the quest to earn a Gold Award, the Girl Scouts' highest honor, presents a wonderful opportunity for senior scouts to channel leadership, personal passion, and social commitment into a community issue.

Meeting a Community Need

The journey to a Gold Award begins with a scout identifying a community issue that she cares about and then finding a way to approach that issue to make a positive contribution and a difference. Previous scouts have received the Gold Award for projects ranging from a public service announcement campaign designed to increase awareness of teen suicide to a local environmental restoration and conservation project that aimed to protect a rare species of salamander.

For Jackie Rapport, a tenth grade student in New Jersey, the path to a possible Gold Award took root in her love of science. Joining what has become a national campaign to increase science literacy among U.S. students, Jackie set out to create a science fair for 6th-8th graders in her area.

Why Start Another Science Fair?

"I'm very interested in science, and I wanted to do a Gold Project for Girl Scouts," explains Jackie. "I became aware that U.S. students are not being prepared for careers in science, engineering, and math, and that the President has challenged us to increase interest in science in young people." A student at the Health Science Academy (HSA), Jackie wanted to find a way to share her enthusiasm for science and science careers.

In the idea of a local science fair, she saw a perfect opportunity to meet the requirements for a Gold Project, a project for which a minimum of 80 hours of work is required, and to invest in a project she would enjoy and find personally rewarding. "Creating a county-wide science fair was a perfect opportunity to combine all of my goals," says Jackie.

Jackie participated in a science fair as a sixth grade student. While the fair was not judged, the experience—and the concept of a science fair—left an impression on her. She believes science fairs are important for students on many levels. "A science fair gives students the opportunity to become more immersed in science and [to] realize the different aspects that it takes to create a project," says Jackie. But participating in a science fair may offer other benefits as well. A science fair "helps students learn the scientific method, but also helps students develop communication skills, math skills, reading comprehension, time management, and ethics," Jackie adds.

Jackie's school, the Health Science Academy, is a new, public, college-preparatory high school, similar to other high schools in the area, but with one marked difference. Jackie's school specializes in health science.The school, run by Mercer County Technical Schools, is in its second formative year and currently consists of grades nine and ten. Grades eleven and twelve will be added over the next two years, with Jackie's class being the first graduating senior class.

"It is a small school of students interested in pursuing careers in medicine or health fields," explains Jackie, "so most students here know the importance of science." But Jackie realizes that not all students are as tuned in to science as her classmates at HSA. She hopes her science fair will spark interest in science among younger local students, a passion for science that may put them on a path to a science career.

Organizing a New Fair is Big Project

As Jackie has discovered, planning a science fair from the ground up is no small undertaking. From getting support and buy-in from her own school and approval from the Girl Scout Council to generating interest among students at local schools, setting up and running an information website, handling the planning logistics for the actual event, and procuring judges, organizing a science fair requires excellent time management skills, meticulous attention to detail, and unwavering commitment to the project.

The process can be daunting, but Science Buddies has a wealth of planning resources for fair coordinators, materials designed to help with every step of the planning process, from the initial overview to judging rubrics for use at the fair. According to Jackie, Science Buddies resources, including A Guide to Planning a Science Fair, were a "great first step" and gave her a concrete place from which to begin. The guide's comprehensive look at what is involved in creating and running a fair helped Jackie visualize her science fair in terms of the "big picture" and enabled her to create a step-by-step plan of action.

For Jackie, Science Buddies materials served as both a guide and a catalyst. Seeing the process broken down into concrete and actionable steps gave her confidence and encouraged her about the feasibility of starting a science fair as a Gold Project. "Science Buddies resources helped me make the decision to have a science fair," says Jackie. "The [Science Buddies website] stresses the value of science fairs and helped me realize that it would be possible for me to create one."

With the idea of creating a local fair in place, and with Science Buddies resources on hand to aid in planning, Jackie moved on to the next phase: getting approval and local support. "My next step was to develop a proposal for Girl Scouts and to get approval from my mentor, advisor, council, and school. The Girl Scout Gold process was extensive," explains Jackie. "I had to outline my project, plans, budget, and more. Then, I had to present and defend the project before getting approved."

For a tenth grader, the planning stages required an immense amount of work, outside of regular coursework and activities. Deciding to have a science fair was only the beginning of Jackie's Gold Award journey. With a blueprint for the fair in place—and approval for the project from the Girl Scout Council—the rest of the work involved began in earnest.

The Value of Community Involvement

While Jackie is spearheading the science fair, organizing a fair requires the support and involvement of a number of people in the community. According to Jackie, the teachers and administration at her school have been supportive of her Gold Award project. "My principal, Lucille Jones, [has been] instrumental," says Jackie, noting that the principal helped arrange for a local community college to host the awards ceremony this spring. "My school advisor for the project, Ron Tarchichi, is my microbiology teacher and the school's Vice Principal," continues Jackie. "He gave me insights in developing my proposal." She goes on to list the contributions of other individual teachers, some of whom have agreed to help as judges, others to whom she has turned for advice and support. Jackie has also received help from other students, parents, and even Boy Scouts in the area. In addition to support from her school and community, Jackie acknowledges the support of her Girl Scout troop, 71452, and, in particular, Cathi Macheda, the leader of Jackie's troop and project mentor for her Gold Award initiative.

Jackie views the fair as one "for students by students" and has spent time getting her classmates excited about the fair and recruiting them into volunteer roles. For example, while she has secured a line-up of judges comprised of professionals and experts in health, science, and education, each group of judges will also include a tenth grade student from her school. She hopes that being a part of the fair in this way will serve as a learning opportunity for her classmates as well as encourage social responsibility among her peers.

Supporting Science at the Middle School Level

For Jackie, holding a fair targeted for middle school students is especially important because she believes students in grades six, seven, and eight are just beginning to consider their careers. As they also evaluate their options for high school, Jackie hopes to inspire interest for her school and for the sciences through the fair.

There are other science fairs in the area, including the Mercer Science and Engineering Fair, an ISEF-affiliated fair. Jackie's county-wide science fair will give students another opportunity to exhibit their science projects. Because her fair will take place after many of the local fairs, Jackie hopes students will take advantage of the timing to revise or correct problems that surfaced in a project exhibited at a local fair. Entering her fair offers students a second chance and another chance to win.

Jackie believes the idea of entering multiple fairs is advantageous for students. "Students will get more mileage from their projects," she says, "have more chances to win prizes and be acknowledged, and also have a chance to revise and improve their projects that may not have won in other fairs."

Gold-Level Effort

Many first-time science fair coordinators have found support at Science Buddies, but Jackie may be the first student that has used these materials to establish a fledgling science fair. When she emailed Science Buddies in August, she told us: "I am Jackie Rapport, a 10th grader, who is NOT doing a science fair project. Instead, I am creating a county-wide science fair for 6th through 8th graders, involving hundreds of students from dozens of public and private schools in Mercer County."

Jackie's initiative, determination, and self-motivation immediately caught our attention, and we have checked in with over the course of the year as she moved closer and closer to the fair's date. Her enthusiasm for her project has not wavered.

We hope Jackie's fair draws submissions from a number of local students and that the time and effort she's invested in helping support local science education results in a wonderful first showing for this new science fair. Jackie's fair is scheduled for April 28, 2012. To learn more about the fair, visit Jackie's fair website: www.sciencefair4all.webs.com

A student's investigation into biofuel finds support and mentorship in the Science Buddies Ask an Expert forums.

Summary

Having utilized Science Buddies resources in previous years, Naima Raza was no stranger to science fairs or to Science Buddies when she consulted Experts in the Ask an Expert forum about her 8th grade environmental science project. With the assistance of an Expert from Bio-Rad Laboratories, Naima turned her interest in biofuels into an award-winning project.

Overview

For Naima, Science Buddies resources, Project Ideas, and Ask an Expert forums have proven both inspirational and invaluable as she has prepared, designed, and executed school science projects over the last several years. Before working on her environmental science project for her 8th grade science fair, Naima had already conducted two science fair projects on environmental science topics, starting with a project in the 6th grade on solar desalination of saltwater. At the time, Naima found the idea that the sun alone could turn salt water into fresh water fascinating. "That the process could also be applied to helping solve a widespread world issue was even more significant," recalls Naima. "I was sincerely interested in making a difference and helping the world become a better place."

That sentiment has continued to guide Naima's research and interest in science. In the 7th grade, she explored the role of substrates in microbial fuel cells. When asked "why" she thinks it is important for students to tackle environmental science questions, her answer is immediate and simple: "Working on environmental science projects is logical!"

"Everybody knows the rapid and dangerous change that the world is going through, and we are already seeing the harmful effects," says Naima. "How can we disregard this issue so easily? The environment affects everything! For example, environmental changes such as climate change are creating and spreading new diseases and making humans even more vulnerable to common diseases. If we can first focus on making our Earth more sustainable, then I'm sure that solving other issues will become easier."

Science Buddies Offers Inspiration and Guidance

Naima's 6th and 7th grade science projects were both inspired by Science Buddies Project Ideas. For each project, she adapted a Science Buddies idea to address her own questions, resulting in a custom experiment each year. When it was time to begin her 8th grade project, Naima returned to Science Buddies and to the Ask an Expert forums where she had received past assistance from volunteer Expert Donna Hardy of Bio-Rad Laboratories. As Naima considered her 8th grade project, she had a number of potential projects in mind and used the Ask an Expert forums to talk over her ideas with Experts, including Donna, a process that helped her better understand the demands and feasibility (in terms of timing, concept, and materials) of each project.

For Naima, finding the right project took time, but getting feedback from Experts helped her continue to refine and redirect her energies and interests. "I hear stories about other students who are naturally curious about a particular subject and do a science fair project about that subject. That sounds incredibly simple, but in reality that never happened to me," admits Naima. "I had to dig in to explore my own passion."

The 'aha' moment did happen, however. After researching cellulosic ethanol, Naima says she immediately thought about newspapers. She asked herself, "can I create ethanol from newspaper waste?" Her background research showed that newspapers had been tested for cellulosic ethanol production, but Naima was interested in what affect pretreatment might have.

Building upon her interest in cellulosic ethanol and assimilating Donna's advice into her project design, Naima narrowed down her focus and began working on her 8th grade project, "The NEWspaper Fuel: Enhancing Cellulosic Ethanol Production." The project explored the process of pretreating newspaper to create ethanol (a biofuel). Her experiment tested two different pretreatment methods, one using ethylene glycol (the organosolv process pretreatment method) and one using hydrogen peroxide (the oxidative delignification pretreatment method), to evaluate the effectiveness of each compared to newspapers that have not been pretreated.

A Mentor's Assistance

According to Naima, one of the biggest challenges in creating the experimental design for her project was the heavy reliance on chemistry, a subject to which, as an 8th grader, she had limited previous exposure. Donna, a long-time volunteer at Ask an Expert, helped Naima work through areas of confusion, served as a guide while Naima shaped her experimental design, and helped Naima procure background and research materials to further shape and inform her research.

"It was a great pleasure to be a mentor for Naima on her 8th grade science fair project," says Donna. "I had also advised her on her 7th grade project, a microbial fuel cell project. For her 8th grade project, which was a study on the feasibility of producing cellulosic ethanol using various pretreatment methods to delignify newspaper, Naima took the time to read and understand the scientific literature on her subject. This required learning advanced chemistry concepts but gave her the background she needed to develop a unique project idea."

"There was a lot of chemistry involved," agrees Naima. "All of the quantities and steps had to be very accurate, and that's where reading scientific papers and discussing [them] with Donna helped drastically. It took me three trials to finalize the experimental procedure, but in the end I learned a lot of neat chemistry!"

With Donna's help at Ask an Expert, Naima developed advanced chemical procedures for treating newspapers, procedures that had not been tested before. "She did an outstanding job of designing an experiment with the resources that she had available using homemade equipment and culture media," says Donna.

From Start to Finish

With her experimental design in place, and the project was underway, Naima continued to exchange information with Donna, checking in at each stage of the project, sharing results, and asking questions. The mentorship that developed on the Ask an Expert forums was inspiring to watch unfold. Spanning a period of approximately six months, the "thread" at Ask an Expert on Naima's project contains more than 175 posts.

From Naima's perspective, completing the project without Donna's assistance would have been much more difficult, in part because to successfully work on her project, she had to find ways to approach testing close to home. "I do not live in a university town, and I did not have the opportunity to work in a laboratory or interact with professors," says Naima.

"Although I was confined to my basement as my lab, Donna was incredible in helping me understand the background concepts behind my project, helping me develop the chemistry-advanced procedure, helping me analyze odd results, suggesting improvements on my scientific report, and overall helping me complete the project within my location and budget constraints."

Resounding Success

After all the testing, it was time to analyze her data and results. For Naima, this was not only a challenging aspect of the project but one of the most rewarding. "Offering a glimpse into the scientist she is becoming, Naima recalls, fondly, "the point where I lean back on my chair and look at the final graphs on my computer screen. I have interpreted and analyzed the data, and it all makes sense now. At this point, I have obtained meaningful conclusions which I can relate to potential applications. The conclusions link right back my goal—I have attempted to aid our planet in my own way!"

In the end, Naima's diligent research and hard work was recognized. At her regional fair, Naima won seven awards, including the "Best in Division - Junior" award. She moved on to the Canada Wide Science Fair, where she won a Gold Medal, in addition to a University of Western Ontario Entrance Scholarship, "Energy Challenge - Junior" Award, and the "Renewable Energy - Junior" Award.

A Scientific Journey Unfolds

From its early roots in the desalination project, Naima's interest in environmental science has continued to deepen and evolve. This year, Naima is continuing her work, extending her research into biofuels and adding to the mix of scientific fields one of her favorites, microbiology. While she doesn't plan on working directly in the field of environmental science, she hopes to continue to explore her interest in environmental science through biology. Naima's got the big picture in mind: "I want my research to affect others positively, and contribute towards saving our planet."

 

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The Science Buddies Ask an Expert forums are staffed by volunteer Experts like Donna Hardy from Bio-Rad. Individuals interested in volunteering with Science Buddies can find out more on our volunteer pages. Bio-Rad sponsors the Biotechnology Techniques Interest Area at Science Buddies.

 

Mikaela May's world is one of full of flowers... real flowers at the floral shop where she works. As an agriscience student and dedicated Future Farmers of America (FFA) member, Mikaela, now a high school senior, turned a common customer question into a successful multi-year science investigation—and came up smelling like roses.

Asking Questions

People who buy roses often want to know what steps they can take to make them last longer. Many florists provide a packet that can be added to the water in a vase to help flowers stay fresh. Do those packets really work? What about baby aspirin? What about copper pennies? (Or are those for snails?)

There are many "common wisdom" strategies out there that promise to be "the" key to helping your blooms last longer than if you just brought them home, put them in a vase of water, and left them alone. What Mikaela wanted to know was whether or not commercially available "preservation" packets work—and, if so, why.

"Sweet" Flowers?

Mikaela's initial study focused specifically on the use of sugars in preservation solutions. As she worked on designing the various phases of her inquiry and then performing her trials, Mikaela used the Science Buddies Project Guide to help keep her on track. She won numerous awards and honors for Phase I and Phase II of her project, and she isn't finished yet. Phase III of her study is underway!

To find out more about Mikaela's project and her "blooming" success at a number of fairs, check out her Science Buddies in Action success story.

Science Buddies knows that students are often most successful doing science projects that tie in with an interest or hobby. Students can browse our library of 1000+ project ideas by area of science (e.g., Biotechnology, Electricity & Electronics, or Energy & Power) or they can use the Topic Selection Wizard. By answering a set of questions, they give the Topic Selection Wizard information that can help suggest project ideas they might enjoy.

Doing a project that ties in with something you love (or something you wonder about or are curious about) can be a win-win. That's why I got excited when I heard McCray McGee's story. As a 2nd grader, McCray did an award-winning science project putting something he heard about Squanto to the test. He wondered: was Squanto right that fish make the best fertilizer for corn?

The project that grew out of his curiosity made use of the family farm, involved cats trying to get to the buried fish, required home-made compost, utilized a pet pig, and ended with some family taste-testing of McCray's fresh-from-the-farm corn to go along with the data analysis he performed after monitoring the crops for 13 weeks. During the project, McCray's mom visited Ask an Expert to get suggestions about how to help guide McCray's project so that it was manageable for his age and grade.

It's a great story! Check it out to see how McCray and his family bridged the gap between American History and Science.

At-Home Plant Science
Interested in plant biology or agriculture? You can conduct a science experiment similar to McCray's even if you don't have a farm!

• With a group of small pots, you can test the effect of nitrogen-based fertilizers in the Growing, Growing, Gone! project.
• Using the Growing, Growing, Gone! project as a model, you can create your own project to test other variables or other types of fertilizer. Our Measuring Plant Growth guide offers suggestions and tips for monitoring your plants.
  

To read other inspiring stories about students, teachers, and families who have used Science Buddies resources, visit our Science Buddies in Action page.