BELFAST — Belfast Area High School students joined 200 fellow students and competitors from around the state for the 75th Maine State Science Fair, with a special emphasis on the ocean’s ecology and its relation to rising temperatures.

 

Chelsea Gaiero, Jonah Lovejoy, and Grace Hall participated in the April 3 virtual fair, which was organized by The Jackson Laboratory  and the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance.

 

The fair comprised 157 students representing 23 schools in eight Maine counties tuned in to present virtual research or engineering projects to a panel of judges and attend events. High school students from across the state competed for prestigious state titles and over $1 million in scholarships and awards.

 

Chelsea’s project investigated the possibility of using the invasive green crabs for lobster bait. 

 

Jonah’s project has been designing and implementing tidal sensors that accurately record sea level rise in the Belfast Bay area to help contribute to data for the state of Maine.

 

Chelsea and Jonah presented at the Science Fair even though they are still in the process of gathering data for their investigations and will continue to work this summer toward completion.

 

Grace’s project looked at small changes in temperature on the development of zebrafish embryos; the question being, as ocean temperatures are slowly increasing what are the ramifications of developing fish embryos even with small temperature changes. 

 

She was able to complete her investigation and has ideas to continue working with zebrafish in the next year, according to Elizabeth Mick, Belfast Area High School Science Fair coordinator.

 

Although a junior, Grace decided to challenge herself with scholarship interviews to prepare for next year's competition and she was extremely happy she did.  She won scholarships at five colleges with her completed project and interviews, including: USM partial scholarship; UNE, $5,000 for four years; Saint Joseph's College, $2,500 for four years; Husson College, $1,000 can be used to take classes there without being enrolled; and a full-four tuition scholarship to UMaine.

 

The winners were announced during a virtual award ceremony on April 3 at 3 pm ET. The event was headlined by keynote speaker Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control.

In his remarks, Dr. Shah encouraged the students to communicate their science clearly to non-scientific audiences. “Just as important as learning the tools of science are learning the tools of science communication,” Shah said. “The principal that I always keep in my mind [when answering a scientific question] is you shouldn’t tell them how to build a clock, you should tell them what time it is, because that’s what they are really interested in.”

“This year’s Maine State Science Fair was an inspiring showcase of the STEM talent being fostered in Maine high schools,” said Michael McKernan, Program Director for STEM and Undergraduate Education at The Jackson Laboratory and a co-Director of the Maine State Science Fair. “Students presented projects that were both highly creative and also relevant to pervasive issues in Maine.”

Linh Nguyen, a senior at Deering High School in Portland, studied how carbon nanotubes could be used as an inexpensive remover of arsenic in drinking water systems, including private wells where arsenic contamination is prevalent. Vetri Vel, a senior at Bangor High School, improved his fall-detection software which uses a thermal-imaging detector of his own creation. Vel’s system could be deployed in the homes of elderly people, living alone, to reliably and automatically detect falls and send a call for help. Ashton Caron, a senior at Nokomis High School in Newport, used GPS collars and chemical studies of pasture grass nutrition to study grazing patterns in cows. This could help Maine farmers better plan pasture rotations to sustain both the cows and their pasture resources.

2.     Second Award – Vetri Vel, 12^th grade, Bangor High School. Readily Implementable Fall Detection System for the Elderly Using Thermal Image Segmentation and Convolutional Neural Networks.

3.     Third Award – Mateus Nascimento, 11^th grade, Brunswick High School. How Animals Talk: Understanding Silk Moth Communication through Detection of Pheromones with an Electronic Nose.

“It has been awe-inspiring to see the achievements of Maine’s students as the Science Fair has grown to involve more schools and educators from across the state,” said Dr. Ruth Kermish-Allen, Executive Director of the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance (MMSA). “Our young people are creating outstanding scientific research that truly can make a difference in the world, and we are able to recognize those efforts through increased scholarships to diverse higher education options available to MSSF students. The creativity and innovation we see in these complex scientific studies highlights the amazing talents of Maine’s next generation of leaders.”

In addition to the Grand Award prizes, more than $1 million in scholarships, including several full-tuition scholarships, from The University of Maine, College of the Atlantic, University of New England, University of Southern Maine, St. Joseph’s College of Maine, the University of Maine at Augusta, and Husson University were distributed to students who demonstrated creativity, innovation, aptitude and notable scientific potential.

For the first time, several Maine community colleges also offered and awarded scholarships. York County Community College, Central Maine Community College, and Southern Maine Community College each made one partial tuition scholarship. Additional students received awards for various achievements from JAX and MMSA.

Zoe Stankevitz, Nokomis Regional High School

Ashton Caron, Nokomis Regional High School

Nora Goldberg-Courtney, Maine Coast Waldorf School

Nick Pease, Nokomis Regional High School

Matthew Gilbert, Greely High School

Ogechi Obi, Bangor High School

Grace Hall, Belfast Area High School

Ashly Nyman, Nokomis Regional High School

Carter Rice, Nokomis Regional High School

Quinn D'Alessio, Bangor High School

Maya Elkadi, Bangor High School

Emerson Harris, Boothbay Region High School

Siobhan Duffy, Washington Academy

Emerson Harris, Boothbay Region High School

Maya Elkadi, Bangor High School

Emerson Harris, Boothbay Region High School

Grace Hall, Belfast Area High School

Nora Goldberg-Courtney, Maine Coast Waldorf School

Roland Ladd, Bangor High School

Virginia Weiss, Cape Elizabeth High School

Uyen Nguyen, John Bapst Memorial High School

Simon Socolow, Bangor High School

Siobhan Duffy, Washington Academy

Uyen Nguyen, John Bapst Memorial High School

Roland Ladd, Bangor High School

Jordan Boyd, Nokomis Regional High School

Cassidy Hodges, Nokomis Regional High School

Ella Donaghy, Medomak Valley High School

Central Maine Community College awarded a one semester full-tuition scholarship to Lillian Philbrook, Hancock County Technical Center.

Southern Maine Community College awarded a one semester full-tuition scholarship to Virginia Weiss, Cape Elizabeth High School.

Linh Nguyen, Deering High School, was awarded the $5,000 Cary James Water Ride Scholarship.

Alexander Benton, Maine Coast Waldorf School

Audrey Hufnagel, Lincoln Academy

Katie Nakai, Brunswick High School

Avery Matthews, Falmouth High School

The team of Esme Song, Penelope Haydar, Caroline Gentile, Cape Elizabeth High School

The full list of special awards is posted online at https://www.jax.org/mssf

1^st - Patrick Wahlig, Falmouth High School

2^nd - Runzhe Yao, Gould Academy

3^rd - Ashton Caron, Nokomis Regional High School

Behavioral Sciences – Psychology

1^st - Sciatzy Solis, Medomak Valley High School

2^nd - Vy Do, Washington Academy

3^rd - Olivia Whitten, Nokomis Regional High School

Biological Sciences

1^st - Mateus Nascimento, Brunswick High School

2^nd - Simon Socolow, Bangor High School

3^rd - Ariel Larrabee, Hancock County Technical Center

Biomedical and Health Sciences

1^st - Emerson Harris, Boothbay Region High School

2^nd - Coco Xu, Falmouth High School

3^rd - McHenna Martin, Hancock County Technical Center

Chemistry

1^st - Auburn Putz-Burton, Gould Academy

2^nd - Jiaqi Li, Gould Academy

3^rd - Grace Leschey and Virginia Weiss, Cape Elizabeth High School

Computer Sciences

1^st - Nick Pease, Nokomis Regional High School

2^nd - Alex Hardy, Foster Technical Center

3^rd - Cuthbert Steadman and Beckett Mundell-Wood, Bangor High School

Data Science

1^st - Madyson Redding, Old Town High School

2^nd - Maia Pietraho, Brunswick High School

3^rd - Jack Nussbaum, Brunswick High School

Engineering

1^st - Vetri Vel, Bangor High School

2^nd - Brady McQuaid, Brunswick High School

3^rd - Jordan Boyd, Nokomis Regional High School

Environmental Engineering

1^st - Linh Nguyen, Deering High School

2^nd - Maya Elkadi and McKayla Kendall, Bangor High School, Bangor High School

3^rd - Frederick Oldenburg and Roland Ladd, Bangor High School, Bangor High School

Environmental Science

1^st - Swetha Palaniappan, Cape Elizabeth High School

2^nd - Paula Dauphinais and Nancy Dauphinais, Nokomis Regional High School

3^rd - Ruth White, Orono High School

Environmental Science – Water

1^st - Miranda LeClair, Old Town High School

2^nd - Ginny Hunt, Bangor High School

3^rd - Quinn D'Alessio, Bangor High School

Materials Science

1^st - Ogechi Obi, Bangor High School

2^nd - Jinkyu Kim, Gould Academy

3^rd - MacKenna Carter, Machias Memorial High School

Physics and Energy

1^st - Mia Smith Old Town, High School

2^nd - Nuthi Ganesh, Bangor High School

3^rd - Will Caron, Bangor High School

Plant Science

1^st - Meaghan Caron, Bangor High School

2^nd - Nora Goldberg-Courtney, Maine Coast Waldorf School

3^rd - Bryce Carter, Hancock County Technical Center

Maine State Science Fair is further supported by Central Maine Power, AV Technik, Society for Science, Maine Technology Institute, Texas Instruments, Maine Space Grant Consortium, IEEE, Hancock Lumber, Fiber Materials, Inc., and Wipfli CPAs and Consultants.

The Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance is a non-profit organization that partners with educators to find inspiring new ways to get our youth excited about Science, Technology, Engineering and Math today so that they can become the innovators, problem solvers, and workforce of tomorrow.

The Jackson Laboratory offers educational programs for scientists throughout their careers, from STEM education for high school students and training for science and math teachers, to courses and conferences for experienced researchers defining the cutting edge of genomics research, and specialized training for physicians interested in incorporating genetics and genomics into their practices.