Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello, I'm a high school student with a project idea in polymer chemistry.

I would like to try and construct a more water-soluble plastic resin so that it could be used in the production of various plastic products, such as the drink 6-packs that have been responsible for the dolphin suffocation problem.

I need to know if this project has already been done and if it hasn't, where who can I go to for a mentor and lab location? Thank you for your help!

To find a mentor (and a lab), try contacting research scientists at a local university. In your case, try looking up scientists that are doing work related to your project (i.e. look for key words like plastics, chemistry, polymers, etc.) Send them e-mails (don't worry if some don't reply back, they might be too busy with research and teaching), follow up, and hopefully you will get an interview.

Here are a few more detailed sites to help you find a mentor:
http://www.cse.emory.edu/sciencenet/und ... entor.html
http://rwjms.umdnj.edu/research/scienti ... ing_mentor
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentorin ... tors.shtml

Good Luck.

Hi Bonsarunner!

To address the first part of your question about resins, you can submit

"What is a more water-soluble plastic resin?" to answers.com.

You'll get back a wealth of resources.

Hi Bonsarunner!

Three notes to my last posting, in using answers.com:

1. Generally, the "Sponsored Links" are commercials. So, it's best to skip them and use only the "Web Results."

2. With answers.com, you may need to tweak your wording for best results.

3. One of the sites, eng-tips.com, appears to a competitor to Science Buddies. It's not!! And I certainly don't buy into their description of students!!! (Please see http://eng-tips.com/register.cfm Thanks.)

Try googling these keyword sets:

polymer starch bacteria

polymer biodegradable bacteria

polymer biodegradable yeast

polymer biodegradable "science fair"

You should find a few links that will allow you to figure out a project. The lab part, if you have one, will require access to a University lab, I suspect.

The WhizKids Foundation, Inc. provides one-on-one mentoring to students working on science fair projects through a program called WhizMentor. You can visit the Foundation's website, http://www.whizkidsfoundation.org, to find more information. Look under the WhizMentor or What We Do tabs.