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).