Two Midwood students Sohail Arif and Imran Ahmed won a trip to Philadelphia and the International Science and Engineering Fair where they represented Midwood High School and the City of New York. They were the only team project selected from New York City to compete at the Fair. In Philadelphia, Sohail and Imran had the opportunity to present their science project in competition against the world at the Olympics of Science Fair Competitions. One of the great experiences they had in Philadelphia was that while practicing for the competition, an elderly gentleman walked over to their display and asked them if they wanted to present their project to him. After the presentation, the gentleman asked them questions about their project. Looking at the man’s name tag, Sohail realized that he was speaking to Leon Lederman a Nobel Laureate in Physics.
This year Midwood maintained its status as one of the foremost science research schools in the country as eight students won the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search. Seven of these winners did projects in the Sciences. Laurie Ferguson won with her project, "Self-Assembly of Titanium Dioxide Aerogels by Inclusion of Degussa P25 Powder". Aviva Laurenti did a project on "Anaerobic Biofilm on Levels of Trihalomethanes in New York City Tap Water". Meghan Lembeck won with "Efficiency of Cross-Linking FMR1 Gene With Mitomycin C: Novel Method in Resolving Intermolecular Cross-Links". Carmela Olevsky won with "CD30 Overexpression Mediates Programmed Cell Death via Caspase and BcI-2 Sensitive Pathway". Katerina Pilevina was a winner with the "Role of Subicular Cell Types in Epileptiform Sharp Waves" and Kim Fai Wong won with "Acute Stress and Role of Corticosterone on Hippocampal Long-Term Potentiation".
Many other students were science fair winners during the year. Fifteen students were winners of the New York State Science Talent Search. Midwood Winners were Shin-Bey Chang, Aviva Laurenti, Meghan Lembeck, Jonathan Saukin, Carmela Olevsky, Sara Nakhmanovich, Virmarie Ruiz, Kim Fai Wong, Zahid Qureshi, Solange Williams, Laurie Ferguson, Yee Fan Fung, Fun Yu Kay, Katerina Pilevina, Joanne Yee, and Jane Fishler.
Last year Midwood was the hub for science research in Brooklyn. Dr. Shapiro hosted science research activities for teachers throughout Brooklyn. He obtained the help of experts in the use of the TI-83 calculator and the Calculator Based Laboratory to train teachers how to use this new technology in the classroom. He also presented a workshop on "Teaching Science Literacy with the New York Times".
Mr. Touger with the help of his research class published another outstanding edition of PRISM. We hope that you will obtain a copy of this publication when you visit Midwood as it highlights many of the science related activities at our school.
Our students had excellent results on the Physical Science Regents exams. More of our students passed the Chemistry, Physics and Earth Science Regents exams than any other school in Brooklyn, and we had the highest passing percentage on the Chemistry Regents exam. If we consider only those schools with a mimimum of 50 students taking an exam than we had the highest passing percentage in Physics and in Earth Science.
The Advanced Placement exams held in May determine whether students will be able to receive college credit for the course work that they do in High School. Fifty-nine of our physics students and forty-seven of our chemistry students qualified for college credit by scoring a 3 or higher on their AP exam, while fifteen of our students achieved a perfect 5.