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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.
Two students who graduated in 2009 coauthored academic works.
Three students who graduated in 2007 coauthored academic works.
Four students who graduated in 2005 coauthored academic works.
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.
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![]() Adrian Perez & Fiona Zhao How different acne medications affect the development of E. coli bacteria |
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
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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https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6519
Posted on Friday, March 18, 2022 by Elert for Awards, Terra NYC.
Congratulations go out to Michelle Yang and Zitong Liu as their project "Veganism saves the world: Plant-based meat alternatives" joins the city's top 100 science projects at the Terra NYC STEM Fair.
Michelle and Zitong have been working to recreate and improve on plant-based meat recipes. They prepared multiple test batches, cooked them, and had volunteers taste test them. They then took their project to the next level and applied the environmental impact assessment done by the Impossible corporation to the different recipes. They computed things such as water consumption, atmospheric carbon release, and nitrogen eutrophication potential. They did this all without the help of a professional food scientist, and were funded in part by a grant from the New York Institute of Technology.
Unfortunately the finals will be held virtually again — Saturday and Sunday, March 26 and 27. When the event was held in real life, students would present at the American Museum of Natural History. The photos below show Michelle and Zitong on a field trip for Sophomore Science Research. We couldn't go the the museum this year, so we went two years ago.
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Michelle and Zitong (center) practicing their Terra NYC presentation with "judges" Mr. Elert (far left), Katherine Zhong (left), and Midwood Mayor Nafisa Haque (right).
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6510
Posted on Thursday, March 3, 2022 by Elert for Awards, JSHS.
On Sunday, February 6, 2022 York College hosted the latest (virtual) installment of the NYC Metro Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS). JSHS is a nationwide collection of 48 regional competitions sponsored by the US Department of Defense whose aims are to promote original STEM research at the high school level and to publicly recognize students for outstanding achievement.
Six projects by Midwood students made it to the semifinals round this year. Bintia Keita won First Place in Engineering and impressed the judges so much that she is one of five students representing New York City at the 60th National JSHS In Albuquerque, New Mexico in April.
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6497
Posted on Monday, February 14, 2022 by Elert for Awards.
Midwood Science senior Bintia Keita was one of 40 winners nationwide to receive the 2022 Award for Aspirations in Computing (AiC) from the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT). Since there were over 3,500 applicants, Bintia is almost literally a one-in-a-hundred student (one in 87.5 for the statistically pedantic out there).
The NCWIT AiC honors 9th–12th grade women, genderqueer, or non-binary students for their computing-related achievements and interests, and encourages them to pursue their passions. Award recipients are selected based on their aptitude and aspirations in technology and computing, as demonstrated by their computing experience, computing-related activities, leadership experience, tenacity in the face of barriers to access, and plans for post-secondary education.
Bintia’s project is a robot named "Emo" who can be used to teach children with autism about emotions. She built and programmed Emo herself at home using parts partially paid for by a grant from the New York Institute of Technology and parts 3D printed at Midwood.
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https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6493
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6506
Posted on Tuesday, January 25, 2022 by Elert for Awards.
The Mini-Research Grant Award (MRGA) is an initiative of the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) that awards monetary grants to high school students for scientific research projects still in the proposal stage. Two projects by Midwood students were selected on Tuesday, January 25, 2022 — and soon thereafter NYIT sent us $600.
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6495
Posted on Monday, January 24, 2022 by Elert for Extra Credit, Juniors, Lectures, Seniors.
News from RockEDU, the science outreach program of The Rockefeller University in New York.
Data for the People (D4P) is back for season 2! This season will feature several unique episodes focused exclusively on social behavior in a variety of model organisms. Through these model systems (ants, nematode worms, and flies) we will wonder "What does it mean to be social?" "What animals are capable of social behavior?" and most importantly "What can we learn from animals about social behavior?"
All D4P episodes will take place on a Wednesday afternoon 4:00 PM–5:00 PM Eastern Time. Each episode has its own registration link.
Two points of extra credit will be awarded to all students who provide proof of attendance on the day of the event and complete the Google Classroom version of this assignment. You may attend as many episodes as you wish, just remember to submit your response to the assignment by 9:00 AM on Thursday after the event
Data for the People (D4P) is an interactive web-series that invites all people to engage with relevant scientific research topics presented by scientists from our communities. Information is sourced directly from primary scientific literature and explored in a way that maintains the rigor of the research while eliminating inaccessible jargon.
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6486
Posted on Saturday, January 22, 2022 by Elert for Publications.
Student work published in print, on-line, or both in 2021.
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6590
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=5012
Posted on Sunday, December 19, 2021 by Elert for Extra Credit, Lectures.
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The Rockefeller University invites you to participate in Talking Science with renowned Rockefeller scientists who will explore the fundamentals of Infectious Diseases and Immunology. Topics covered in this virtual webinar will include a variety of diseases, how they spread, and what we can do to protect ourselves from them.
Talking Science is an annual event designed for grades 9–12, led by members of The Rockefeller University's elite faculty. This year's event will be held virtually on January 10, 2022 as a Zoom webinar. Register now! A unique Zoom link will be sent to you prior to the lecture.
Two points of extra credit will be awarded to all students who provide proof of attendance on the day of the event and complete the Google Classroom version of this assignment for any one of the speakers before 9:00 AM Tuesday, January 11.
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Before There Was COVID, There Was (And Is!) Tuberculosis |
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6479
Posted on Friday, November 12, 2021 by Elert for JSHS, Seniors.
Applications are now being accepted for the New York City Metro Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS). Anyone with a research report that is finished (or even just close enough) can enter. Teams can enter together, but only one team member presents.
The application is done through a web form. You type your info into the fields, upload a PDF of your latest and greatest research report, upload some additional forms and other documentation, and then hit the "submit" button. Easy peasy. This has to be completed in the Research Room with me witnessing it on or before Friday, November 19. (Don't blame me for the short notice, this is how they operate.) Completing the application is worth +4 points of extra credit.
The top 120 projects will be invited to York College to present at the Symposium on Sunday, February 6, 2022. If COVID restrictions are still in effect at CUNY campuses in February, the event will be held virtually. Presenting at the Symposium will be worth +10 points. In the case of team projects, the presenter will get +10 points and the other team members will receive +5 points.
Contact me quickly if you are interested in applying. I have paperwork to do that requires the Principal's signature (JSHS Form C) and I am not doing it on the day it's due. If you are working with a mentor, you also need their signature on one form (JSHS Form B). They would probably appreciate it if you contacted them as soon as possible. They would probably appreciate it even more if you partially filled out the form for them. There is also a form for projects involving human subjects (JSHS Form A), but you can give them your IRB form instead.
Read the Student Registration page for details on what is needed for the application. Contact me if you have questions.
https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6472
Posted on Saturday, October 30, 2021 by Elert for Extra Credit, Juniors, Seniors.
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On Wednesday, November 10, 2021, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center will host its 16th annual Major trends in modern cancer research lecture for high and college students and their teachers. (Members of the public are also welcome to attend.) The event will take place virtually from 6:00–7:30 PM. Registration is required.
This event is a free community education program designed to engage and inspire the next generation of progressive researchers and scientists. MSK has a wide range of opportunities to volunteer at our labs, find mentors at MSK, and potentially join our research community.
Two points of extra credit will be awarded to all students who provide proof of attendance on the day of the event and complete the Google Classroom version of this assignment for any one of the speakers before 9:00 AM Friday, November 12.
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https://midwoodscience.org/?p=6468
Posted on Tuesday, June 22, 2021 by Elert for Publications.
Student work published in print, on-line, or both in 2020. Nomon graduated in 2017, Jennifer in 2018, Toby in 2019.
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