Twenty Students Win Awards and Honors at Carver Science Fair

Competing against the best 11th- and 12th-grade science students in Philadelphia, 20 SCH students received honors and medals at the city's 46th annual George Washington Carver Science Fair in March. Students’ research posters and presentations before scientist judges earned them 1st-place medals in 5 of the 11 categories that SCH entered, and a special award from the Eastern Pennsylvania Branch of the American Society of Microbiology, which came with a $100 prize.

The competition was sponsored by Temple University, and students who earned 1st-, 2nd-, or 3rd-place medals are eligible to compete in the regional Delaware Valley Science Fair, where they compete against the best students from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.

1st Place:

• Tristyn Howard - The Effects of Fragment Size and Material Type on Bacterial Colonization in Aquatic Environments 
• Amit Greene - The Social Pressure of Moral Questions in Group Settings
• Logan Landau - M.E.T.E.O.R.
• Bailey Walder - The Effects of Tire Turf and Eco Turf on the Growth of Saccharomyces cerevisiae
• Luxinming Yin - Beyond Exponential Decay: A Perturbation Analysis of Spatially Dependent Non-Linear Magnetic Damping 

2nd Place: 

• Ella Thomson - The Effect of Background Noise on Reading Comprehension
• Rolly Whitten - The Effect of Red 40 on the Growth of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Cells
• Sky Matta - The Effect of Plastic Type and Temperature on the Efficiency of PETase Plastic Degradation 
• Taylor Heery - Synergistic Effects of Geranium Oil on Antibiotics
• Jiacheng Li - Probiotics Derived Extra Cellular Vesicles Suppress Biofilm Development of Common Pathogenic Bacteria
• Jude Hackford and Ariana Chan-van der Helm - Muon Production with High Density Targets for Lunar Tomography

3rd Place:

• Ziya DeVeaux - The Effect of Lifestyle Choices on Physiological Indicators in High School Students
• Sienna Stowe - The Effect of Bleach on Hair Structure
• Izzy Dupree - The Effect of Different Cooking Methods on the Antioxidant Capacity of Fragaria x ananassa
• Leela Gilbert-Gokhale - DNA Degradation Inside the Lab: Examining Real Life Environmental Effects on DNA Evidence Integrity
• Nadia Russell - The Mental Health Impact of Blue Light Exposure on Drosophila melanogaster

Honorable Mention:

• Cecelia Pressman - The Effects of Hydrocharis morsus-ranae on Water Quality
• Clare Murphy - The Effects of Varied Density and Textured Polyethylene on the Growth of E. coli Biofilms

Special Award:

• Tristyn Howard - Eastern Pennsylvania Branch of the American Society of Microbiology 1st place ($100)

Science Fair winners, first row, from left: Cece Pressman, Rollins Whitten, Ella Thomson, Taylor Heery, Sky Matta, Leela Gilbert-Gokhale; second row, from left: Amit Greene, Ziya DeVeaux, Ariana Chan van der Helm, Richard Li, Jude Hackford, Bailey Walder, Izefia Yin, Nadia Russell
Not pictured: Logan Landau, Trisytn Howard, Sienna Stowe, Izzy Dupree, Clare Murphy