Science Fair Stars! Top Prize and More At Regional Competition

The young scientists found inspiration in their homes, yards and hobbies, and the research projects they created there won several awards for the City School District of New Rochelle in the Tri-County Science and Engineering Fair.

Among the honors: The top prize in the middle-school level.

Research into dizziness by Albert Leonard Middle School eighth-grader Elena Adams (at right) earned the Judge Edith Miller Excellence in Education Award for the Top Middle School Exhibit when the previously recorded results were posted last Saturday.

What’s more, Adams and her classmate, Karun Kulamavalavan, qualified to apply for the Broadcom MASTERS, the nation’s premier competition in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). Scarlett Hartzman, an ALMS seventh-grader, was named a Broadcom MASTERS alternate.

Adams, a figure skater, invented her project when she was surprised to find that the dizziness that had abated with experience had returned after a COVID-related absence from the sport.

“When I came back to skating, I tried doing a spin and I felt so dizzy,” she said. “It was strange because I hadn’t felt dizzy in a long time.”

Kulamavalavan, who enjoys cleaning fish-tank filters to keep them working efficiently, created an experiment called “Biomedia Bonanza,” testing which materials clean water best. Hartzman mixed different proportions of vinegar and baking soda as a propellant for her experiment, “Backyard Rockets.”

“This was real kitchen-and-backyard science,” said Thalia Segal, the president of the Foundation for Science Research in New Rochelle, a parents’ group that prepares elementary and middle school students for competitions and for the Science Research Program in New Rochelle High School.

“These were ideas they came up with, just looking around their house or yard. That was the winning theme. And we came incredibly well-prepared.”

In all, seven elementary and middle school students from the District won six awards. Their showing was all the more impressive considering the competition has grown. While its name is still the “Tri-County” competition, students from Long Island’s two counties joined in to make it five counties.

The New Rochelle students qualified for the Tri-County competition because they participated in the New Rochelle Research Fair, which was funded with a grant from the New Rochelle Fund for Educational Excellence. Segal said the students performed so well in the Tri-County event that the team will be looking for even more venues next year to qualify for Broadcom.

Among the achievements, she noted, William B. Ward Elementary School fifth-grader Leo Adams won third place in the Chemistry division even though he was placed in the middle-school category, pitting him against competitors as old as eighth grade.

For her study on dizziness, Adams convinced 40 people to try spinning on a skating spinner in her driveway – figure skaters, dancers and hockey players, plus a control group of friends who engaged in none of those activities. Skaters fared the best, dancers second. Then came the unexpected. The control group fared better than the hockey players, “which was definitely surprising,” Adams said.

The reason would require more study of the vestibular system, which is responsible for balance, and which piqued her interest.

“I was really interested in how it can affect the vestibular system because the vestibular system itself can create so many disorders in life,” she said.

Kulamavalavan, in his filtration project, tested various naturally occurring media, including coconut fibers and ceramic clay, but found they did not perform as well as the synthetic cloth, which was designed specifically for the purpose.

“It was bound to perform better than something you could find in nature, like coconut husk,” Kulamavalavan said.

With the regional competition behind them, Adams and Kulamavalavan are setting their sights on the national stage: the Broadcom competition.

“This is a great opportunity, but now I’ve got to take it up another step,” Kulamavalavan said. “I’ve got to go further. I’ve got to do even better.”

New Rochelle’s winners

Elementary

Veronica Garret and Nia Nkomo of William B. Ward Elementary School won the Excellence Award in Environmental Science for their project, “Crystallization to Liquefaction: The Transformation of Honey.”

Middle School

Leo Adams of Ward won third place in Chemistry with his project, “The Effect of a Match on Tears from an Onion.”
Scarlett Hartzman won second place in Chemistry with her project, “Backyard Rockets.”
Karun Kulamavalavan won second place in Environmental Science with the project, “Biomedia Bonanza.”
Elena Adams won first place in Health & Medicine with her study, “The Impact of Certain Activities on the Training of the Vestibular System to Reduce D