2023 Science Fair Abstract Book (and more from the past)
Posted on Wednesday, May 24, 2023 by Elert for Science Fair.
Posted on Wednesday, May 24, 2023 by Elert for Science Fair.
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6743
Posted on Thursday, May 18, 2023 by Elert for Science Fair.
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The Midwood Science Fair is almost upon us. Thursday, May 25, 2023 will be here before you know it. Juniors and seniors meet in the Library period 9. Alumni and other registered celebrity judges show up around 2:45–3:00 (a little early is better than a little late). Sophomores be in your assigned spot at the start of period 11. Everyone be prepared for an afternoon of science and celebration.
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6739
Posted on Thursday, April 27, 2023 by A Student for 24/7 Lecture.
24 seconds: When Covid 19 emerged, a greater number of people stayed home which resulted in a decline of football enthusiasts at home games. However, a question arises, did the lack of sports fanatics impact home field records? Data from several NFL seasons says the number of rowdy fans or the capacity of a stadium full, did not influence the number of touchdowns scored and allowed.
7 words: Football fans overestimate their importance at games
Warner G. (class of 2023)
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6731
Posted on Tuesday, April 25, 2023 by Elert for Science Fair.
The 2023 Midwood Science Fair is only a month away. Right now as you read this the sophomore research students are diligently working on their projects, formulating hypotheses, and plotting the best way to gather and analyze data. The juniors and seniors are sharpening their metaphorical pencils as well as their literal questioning skills. The alumni judges are looking forward to seeing old friends at Midwood once again. The teachers are keeping their students focused. Everyone is coordinating their schedules to make sure they're ready for Thursday, May 25, 2023.
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https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6725
Posted on Wednesday, April 19, 2023 by A Student for 24/7 Lecture.
24 seconds: We studied the correlation between food environment and life expectancy in California. Publicly accessible databases and California government-run websites were used. ArcGis was the main tool used to visually display the data on a California map with outlined counties. Relationships were analyzed using Pearson's correlation matrix, displaying a relatively weak association with life expectancy. Outside factors like accessibility to healthy foods and preexisting conditions may have affected the results.
7 words: California diet yields unexpected life expectancy findings
Christina O. and Anna O. (class of 2023)
California counties and food options
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6722
Posted on Tuesday, April 18, 2023 by A Student for 24/7 Lecture.
24 seconds: This study examined the association between whole grain intake and atherosclerotic coronary heart disease (CHD) outcomes by creating an evidence map that compared whole grain consumption by country and whole grain type. The strongest evidence supports the association between whole grains, whole grain breakfast cereals, and bran and the reduced risk of CHD. Further research needs to be conducted for oatmeal, whole wheat bread, and individual whole grains because of inconsistent outcomes.
7 words: Not all whole grains equal healthy hearts.
Anne B. (class of 2023)
An assortment of wwhole grain foods
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6714
Posted on Wednesday, April 5, 2023 by A Student for 24/7 Lecture.
24 seconds: Microglia are the brain's primary immune cells, they protect and regulate brain development, maintain neuronal networks, and bury apoptotic cells. External factors like social isolation invoke microglia cells to take on an injurious pathway by over secreting proteins that accumulate and form amyloid plaques that collect between neurons and can disrupt cell function.
7 words: Social isolation is bad for brain cells.
Alexis M. (class of 2023)
Image of a plaque being engulfed by microglia
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6709
Posted on Friday, March 31, 2023 by Elert for Awards, Terra NYC.
The Terra New York City STEM Fair held their finals round at New York University's Tandon School of Engineering this past Sunday, May 26, 2023. This year's fair had 436 applicants from all 5 boroughs. Of the 36 Midwood Science seniors who entered, 2 received extra special recognition.
Mykhaelia C. won Third Place in Neuroscience and received the Brilliant.org Award for her project "Exploring the Feasibility of a Fluorescence Imaging-Based Brain-Machine Interface". Mykhaelia worked worked under the supervision of Dr. Ben Scott at Boston University.
Lucas P. won Third Place in Mathematical Sciences and received the Yale Science and Engineering Association Award for his project "Multivariable analysis on stock price and trade volume trends in the post-COVID-19 stock market shutdown era". Lucas worked under the supervision of Dr. Allison Bishop at Proof Trading, Inc.
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Terra Science and Education is a non-profit organization headquartered in Syracuse, New York that sponsors several regional science and engineering fairs in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
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https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6688
Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2023 by Elert for Awards.
The Mini-Research Grant Award (MRGA) is an initiative of the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) that rewards high school students for scientific research projects that are still in the proposal stage. This year two teams of Midwood Science juniors were selected by NYIT to receive grants totaling $600.
The duo of Diana C.F. and Jennifer F. were awarded $300 for their proposal, "The Effect of Thermal Stimulation on Body Ownership". They will be performing an updated version of the rubber hand illusion — an experiment to understand the body's sense of self.
The trio of Hailey L., Ashley C.M., and Batool K. were awarded $300 for their proposal, "Emotional Synchrony within Friendship". They plan on using EEG devices and a novel technique called hyperscanning to record the activity of multiple brains simultaneously.
Left to Right: Mr. Glenn Elert (coordinator), Diana C.F., Jennifer F., Ashley C.M., Batool K., Hailey L., Ms. Stacy Goldstein (teacher), Dr. Robert Quinlan (principal)
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6675
Posted on Monday, February 27, 2023 by Elert for Awards, JSHS.
On Sunday, February 12, 2023 three Midwood Science seniors presented their work at the semifinals round of the New York City Metro Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS). Semifinalists at JSHS are recognized for being among the top 100 science research projects in the five boroughs. This regional event has been hosted at York College in Queens on the second Sunday of February since 2009. 2023 marks its post-pandemic return to an in-real-life competition.
 Kaitlynn M. |
 Mykhaelia C. |
 Lucas P. |
JSHS is a nationwide program sponsored by the US Department of Defense that encourages high school students to conduct original research in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and publicly recognizes them for outstanding achievement. By connecting talented students, their teachers, and research professionals at affiliated symposia and by rewarding research excellence, JSHS aims to widen the pool of trained talent prepared to conduct research and development vital to our nation.
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https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6671
Posted on Monday, February 6, 2023 by Elert for Awards, St. Joseph's.
After a three year hiatus, Midwood Science has finally returned to in-real-life competitions. On Saturday, February 4, 2023 Saint Joseph's University hosted its 25th Annual Research Poster Session for High School Students at their 107 year old campus in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Midwood sent 20 seniors with projects in animal science, medicine, public health, psychology, social science, microbiology, neuroscience, engineering, and astronomy. 3 projects received honorable mention.
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6665
Posted on Saturday, December 31, 2022 by Elert for Publications.
Student work published in print, on-line, or both in 2021. Daelah is the first author of this paper, a position that is rare for high school students.
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6695
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6638
Posted on Sunday, June 26, 2022 by Elert for Publications.
Science is a collaborative effort. No one works alone. The highest praise a mentor can give to a student is to include them as an author on a scientific paper. From 1998 to 2022, 31 Midwood Science students have seen the work they did while still in high school published in peer-reviewed journals. Three had their names appear first in the list of authors, which means they were recognized as contributing more than anyone else.
All efforts have been made to ensure this record is exhaustively complete. If I have missed anything, please let me know.
Daelah is the first author of this paper, a position that is rare for high school students.
Nomon graduated in 2017, Jennifer in 2018, Toby in 2019.
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Kiara and Shadika graduated in 2014. Kahei graduated from Midwood in 2008 and was working with Dr. Rosenfield as student of SUNY Optometry when this experiment was conducted.
Gabby is the first author of this paper, a position that is rare for high school students.
Francisca and Mercy graduated in 2011, Leo in 2013.
Mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis) Preference and Behavioral Response to Animated Images of Conspecifics Altered in Their Color, Aspect Ratio, and Swimming Depth with Giovanni Polverino and Maurizio Porfiri at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in PLOS ONE Vol. 8, No. 1 (2013): e54315.
Two students who graduated in 2009 coauthored academic works.
Novel anti-HIV peptides containing multiple copies of artificially designed heptad repeat motif with Weiguo Shi, Zhi Qi, Chungen Pan, Asim K. Debnath, Jiankun Qie, Keliang Liu, and principal investigator Shibo Jiang. Published in Biochemical and biophysical research communications. Vol. 364, No. 4 (2008): 767–722.Three students who graduated in 2007 coauthored academic works.
Four students who graduated in 2005 coauthored academic works.
Crystal Structure of the Putative Peptidyl-arginine Deiminase from Chlorobium tepidum, NESG Target CtR21 with A.R. Befeler, S.M. Vorobiev, M. Ciano, T.B. Acton, G.T. Montelione, J.F. Hunt, L. Tong and Farhad Forouhar of Columbia University. Published in the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics Protein Data Bank (RCSB-PDB), 16 November 2004.
Structural Basis for Discriminative Regulation of Gene Expression by Adenine-and Guanine-Sensing mRNAs with Alexander Serganov, Yu-Ren Yuan, Anna Polonskaia, Lucy Malinina, Anh Tuân Phan, Claudia Hobartner, Ronald Micura, Ronald R. Breaker, and Dinshaw Patel. Published in Cell Chemical Biology. Vol. 11, No. 12 (2004): 1729–1741.
Jacquline graduated in 2001 and Jessica graduated in 1999.
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6642
Posted on Wednesday, June 15, 2022 by Elert for Publications.
On Tuesday, June 14, Midwood Science senior Daelah Nicholas presented her research project at the American Society for Nutrition's virtual conference, Nutrition 2022. An abstract of her work was also published at the same time in the June issue of Current Developments in Nutrition. The conference presentation is for registered attendees only, but the journal article is "open access", i.e. free of charge. Daelah worked under the supervision of Dr. Jean Kever in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.
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| Infant temperament: Exploring the potential role of maternal dietary choline and folate consumption during pregnancy in a Michigan pregnancy cohort. Daelah Nicholas (Midwood High School) with Chia-Lun Yang, Nicole Talge, & Dr. Jean Kerver (Michigan State University). | |
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6567
Posted on Monday, June 13, 2022 by Elert for Awards, Science Fair.
1st Place |
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 Anna Bukhman pH Impact on Algae Growth |
 Adrian Perez & Fiona Zhao How different acne medications affect the development of E. coli bacteria |
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2nd Place |
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 Cindy Li The Science Behind The Perfect Cookie |
 Hamood Khan One in a melon: the effect of fertilizers on the height of watermelon plants |
 Victoria Ronan & Lucy Guo Germ-Proof! |
3rd Place |
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 Xinwei Chen Effects of pH on Bacterial Degradation |
 Emely Rivas & Katelyn Martinez The Biofuel in Bio-you |
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Honorable Mention |
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 Rebecca Yakobovich & Eman Shabbir Conformity Trends in High School |
 Jinyu Xu Soil Moisture Content vs. Volt Resistors (Prototype) |
 Batool Kamal Rethink What You Drink |
 Eda Maqellara & Elana Chen No Bacteria Please! |
 Diana Chen Feng & Jennifer Fan Disinfectants vs. Bacteria |
 Hailey Lau & Ashley Castillo Mendez Bacteria: #1 Public Enemy to Masks |
Bonus photo |
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 Congrats to all the winners! |
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https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6551
Posted on Wednesday, June 1, 2022 by Elert for Science Fair.
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6547
Posted on Wednesday, June 1, 2022 by A Student for JSHS, Media.
Six projects made by Midwood students made it into the semifinals for the NYC Metro Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS) held virtually at York College this February. Senior Bintia Keita won First Place in Engineering, earning a spot as one of five students representing New York City at the 60th National JSHS. She brought her robot "Emo" to Albuquerque, New Mexico, this April.
"The competition was amazing from day one," said Keita. "My delegation was full of awesome, really smart people from New York City. It was great to be around people who were motivated and dedicated and brilliant in the field that they were studying. It was amazing."
The JSHS is a U.S. Department of Defense-sponsored high school STEM competition. The National Symposium brings together 245 high school students who qualified at regional symposiums held at partnered universities and organizations nationwide.
Emo is Keita's robotics toy for children with autism, designed to improve their interactions and emotional interpretation. Emo's screen is used to play guessing games with three levels of difficulty: emoji, cartoon, and realistic.
After the child successfully matches the emoji to the emotion, Emo uses positive reinforcement through confetti, animations, and movement. Through a slow evolution, autistic children who can identify the correct emotion can better recognize it in a live person.
Keita coded the elements of the display such as the guessing game, animations, and movements using Javascript and a free web editor, P5JS. "I would create a 3D model using Fusion 360, and then I would print it at school and assemble it using stuff I found in my dad's toolbox," she said.
Currently, Keita is working on making Emo mobile and is thinking about sending it to different clinics.
Semifinalists Michelle Yang '22 and Zitong Liu '22 worked on veganism and plant-based alternatives to meat after they noticed plant-based meat as the only option on the shelves after meat shortages in Ohio supermarkets during the pandemic.
They cooked and tested multiple batches and recipes and assessed each recipe's environmental impact, computing factors such as water consumption and atmospheric carbon release. "I think the public should be educated on the benefits of vegan meat," said Yang.
Being able to share findings with the public is one of the fun parts of the JSHS, she added. "It's just really exciting to share our project with other schools," said Yang. "Most of my group were from Bronx Science, and the other one was from Stuy[vesant]. It was interesting seeing their projects and then secretly comparing them with mine."
Samarpreet Singh '22 ran an experiment to find a relationship between social media use and a person's levels of optimism or pessimism. He found that students who excessively use social media are more likely to be pessimistic.
Singh found that the Midwood student body averages around six hours of social media use per day. Previous studies recommended 30 minutes to be a healthy amount. "I feel like in today's generation, the repercussions have to be considered," said Singh. "Midwood students specifically need to lower their social media use."
Lian Hao Zheng '22, working with seniors Benny Dong and Jason Wu, conducted a survey-based study to find the effect of gratitude on a person's mental and physical health, specifically on sleep quality and depression.
"Gratitude is the ability to stay in the present," said Zheng, "to be attentive to your surroundings, to be grateful for the things that are happening around you. Being a more empathetic person is definitely the way to increase your gratitude."
He found that increased gratitude leads to lower levels of depression and higher levels of sleep quality. "If there is a significant correlation, then it may have a potential use as a medical treatment," said Zheng.
Zheng said it felt great becoming a semifinalist. "I'm happy that this topic is being recognized, as well as my follow-up study about mindfulness," he said. "I'm just happy both of them got the grant from NYT, which shows people actually care."
Muhammad Sharjeel '22 studied the difference between extroverts and introverts and their homework behavior. Homework behavior was measured by time, effort, and performance.
"When you think of extraversion, like how social someone is, you wouldn't connect that to homework, so that's why it was interesting," said Sharjeel.
He conducted an experiment using questionnaires and an experimental implicit association test, both testing which side of the introversion / extraversion spectrum the participants were on based on their identification-related words (shyness), phrases, and questions.
In his first study, he found a weak negative correlation but no correlation between extraversion and homework time in his second study. He also found that procrastination and homework performance had no correlation with extraversion. Using these findings might help teachers better understand how students learn, he explained.
Enaya Ahmad '22 studied the "other-race effect": how people are better able to recognize faces from their own race than faces from other races. She sought to answer the question "Is there a presence of the other-race effect in teenagers, and is the trend similar to infants and adults?"
"When I walked outside, I was able to remember faces of my own race and not other faces," said Ahmad. "Sometimes I misidentify my white neighbors as somebody else, which is something that I found odd because it didn't happen with me for other South Asians."
Ahmad showed African American, White, and Asian faces to people and later made them find the original face that was shown with two altered versions of that face.
Those who lived in a less racially diverse neighborhood were better at recognizing their own race than other races. The other-race effect was present only in 14-16-year-olds; 17-18 year-olds recognized other races better, she found.
Within the behavioral psychology category, Ahmad was with nine other students, all of whom were from Bronx Science. "It was definitely intimidating, but I felt proud to be there, representing Midwood," said Ahmad. "That was a really proud moment because I put a lot of effort into my project."
"I thought we had really good results this year," said Mr. Glenn Elert, the research teacher. "We did really well because Bintia got to go to nationals, and that hasn't happened in – it might be 10 years. So that's an awesome accomplishment on Bintia's part and something she should really be proud of."
All the finalists recommended the three-year science research class at Midwood. "Colleges want to see you do something that requires independence, creativity, and responsibility," said Mr. Elert. "The thing we need are people who are interested in working on a long-term project on their own."
"We had an alumnus who graduated in the '80s, Fritz Francois," said Mr. Elert. "He is now the dean of admissions at the NYU School of Medicine. He came back, and he was talking to our students, and he said, 'We routinely reject people from the NYU School of Medicine who have 4.0 averages because they don't have anything else.' A research class sets you apart."
Written by Rachel Dong (Class of 2023)
This article originally appeared in the June 2022 issue of Argus.
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6557
Posted on Sunday, May 22, 2022 by Elert for ACT-SO, Awards.
Midwood Science seniors Daelah Nicholas and Bintia Keita received Gold Medals at this year's New York City Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) — Daelah in Medicine and Health and Bintia in Engineering. Both students are headed to Atlantic City in July where they will present their research projects at the NAACP National Convention.
Daelah Nicholas, Mr. Elert, Bintia Keita
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| Daelah Nicholas. Category: Medicine and Health. Project: Infant temperament: Exploring the potential role of maternal dietary choline and folate consumption during pregnancy in a Michigan pregnancy cohort. Mentor: Dr. Jean M. Kerver, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Michigan State University | Bintia Keita. Category: Engineering. Project: "Emo's" potential application for children with autism. Mentors: Dr. Kathleen McDermott and Dr. Scott Fitzgerald, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University |
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6559
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2022 by Elert for Awards, Terra NYC.
Congratulations go out to the team of Zitong Liu and Michelle Yang. Their project, "Veganism Saves the World: Plant-Based Meat Alternatives," won Honors at the 2022 Terra NYC STEM Fair, making them one of the top high school science research projects in New York City. They also won the NOAA Award for "fine work about science, service, and stewardship in the study of climate, weather, oceans, and coasts."
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