Michael Rosenthal

(4/2018) The Mother Seton School STEM Fair continues to be as impressive and as much fun as ever. STEM, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, consists of science project presentations from students in grades 3 through 8. This year there were 116 projects from 124 participants. The presentations were the same as if graduate science theses were being presented, consisting of a hypothesis, the materials utilized, the procedures undertaken, the observations, the data obtained, and conclusions drawn from the study. A journal was kept recording the procedures and observations. Visible information boards were created to explain the experiment or study to the audience. I spent almost an hour wandering through the exhibits, observing, and enjoying the displays, and here are just some of the topics that caught my eye:

• Do Dogs Know Their Owners By Smell?
• Do Different Types of Flours Affect Cake Rising?
• Does Coffee, Tea, or Soda Stain Your Teeth?
• Can a Mother Smell What Shirt Belongs to Each of Her Children?
• What Substance Cleans Horsetails the Best?
• Does Drinking Milk Help You Sleep?
• Does Color Affect Memory?
• Does a Dog’s Drool Kill Germs?
• Effects of Video Games on the Body
• Is Smiling Contagious?
• Does Listening to Certain Music Affect Your Sleep Pattern?
• Does the Lunar Phase of the Moon Affect How Many Stars Are Visible In The Sky?

There was also a construction project, named "the Snapper" that really was impressive: a gadget that delivers a football into your hands. Its proposed usefulness was to determine how well a quarterback can practice receiving a football from a determined undercenter position. It was powered by gravity!

Here are the project winners:

• Third Grade: Jacob Marron (1st); Abigail Field (2nd); Rachel Zurawski (3rd)
• Fourth Grade: Maggie Rabaiotti (1st); Sophia Erdman (2nd); Thien Pham (3rd)
• Fifth Grade: Isaac Jenkins (1st); Olivia Adams (2nd); Faith Collins (3rd); Brody Koenig (Honorable Mention)
• Sixth Grade: Cassidy Sill (1st); Emily Flynn (2nd); Julia Wivell (3rd); Sophia Launchi (Honorable Mention)

First place among the seventh graders were Grant Kelly and Nathan Kovalcik; the second place winners were Brendan Guinan, Becket Taylor, and Carter Loher; the third place winner was Quynh Nguyen; and Jayden Joseph won Honorable Mention. In the eighth grade, first place was won by Megan Adams for "Which Mouthwash that Claims To Restore or Repair Tooth Enamel Works the Best."

Second place was won by Keola Evans and Jane Waybright for "Does the Concentration of Boron Affect the Biomass in Soybeans," and third place went to Mia Ferraro for "How Long Should Bleach Water Be Left On A Surface To Maximize Its Effectiveness In Killing Bacteria?" Honorable Mention was awarded to Raphaela Smaldone, for "Glycerin, Honey, Aloevera, Which is the Most Effective Humectant?"

Nathan Kovalcik won Grand Champion Innovation. Megan Adams won Grand Champion Experimental and was Overall Grand Champion. Congratulations Winners!

The overall Director of this event and the projects is Mother Seton faculty member Danielle Kuykendall. Once again, great job Danielle! Project mentors include Ron Albaugh, Daryll Bruner, Ed Hatter, Edison Hatter, Jeff Simmons, and Don Thompson. Judges include Ron Albaugh, Ed Hatter, Edison Hatter, Mike Hillman (Editor of this newspaper), and Jamie Orndorff. I might add that Jamie is a Mother Seton graduate, and she was my excellent student in General Chemistry laboratory at Mt. St. Mary’s. Also participating in the judging were 3 students from Catoctin High School and a student alumnus from Hood College.

I had a wonderful conversation of more than a half hour with Megan Adams, Keola Evans, Jane Waybright, and Mia Ferrero. The maturity and scientific sophistication of this group was amazing, and their potential for careers in science or medicine is just sky high! I’m already looking forward to next year.

Now for some follow-up stories on Space Science (or Space Pseudo Science!). If you read the Washington Post (as my wife Linda and I do daily), you would have seen a story on March 11 entitled, "The Pentagon isn’t taking UFOs seriously enough." The story reports on several recorded videos. Specifically, an observation of a fleet of "hovering egg-shaped craft" described as "far superior to anything possessed by the United States or its allies." Such encounters are reported there to go back several years. The writer is Christopher Mellon, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He doesn’t suggest that we know that these are alien spacecraft, but he advances the idea that we are not taking them seriously enough at the Pentagon level to really understand the observations. Mellon, who is now an advisor to the Stars Academy for Arts and Sciences, is a highly reputable individual, whom I take seriously. One worry is that these occurrences are evidence of astonishing advances in aircraft by Russia or China. And then there are those who suggest that…THE ALIENS ARE HERE! Neither the author nor I are suggesting that this is an alien sure thing, but I, like he, think we should be trying to figure out on a governmental level what is going on here. I highly recommend the reading of this article, available on line.

Another Washington Post story from March 6 suggests that "Alien life could thrive on Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus." This article is highly technical, even for me. I am a laboratory chemist, not a space scientist, but I also recommend reading it. As a scientist, and as I grew up fascinated by space science, I wish we could devote more resources to our study of the greater universe.

A topic that is getting a lot of attention lately, and rightly so, is that of plastic trash. We greatly overuse plastic bags, and they have a very negative impact on the environment. In the 1970’s single use plastic bags were not at all common in grocery stores. Now, an estimated one trillion (!) plastic bags are used globally each year. (I just brought home one from The Jubilee). The New York Times reports that some 23 billion bags are used annually in New York State alone. They are terribly polluting. We see them everywhere – in streets, in trees, in waterways. And they don’t biodegrade. Some countries have added a fee for their use or even have outlawed them (Kenya, for one). California is the only state to really face into this problem, banning single-use plastic bags, a policy endorsed by California voters. Some cities have banned them, and others are considering doing so. The United Nations Environment Program estimates that eight million tons of plastic waste ends up in the oceans of the world annually. Production of these bags is in itself an environmental problem, generating huge amounts of carbon dioxide. In my opinion we need to return to reusable and recyclable paper bags wherever we can.

In closing, a tribute to Stephen Hawking, a truly brilliant theoretical physicist whose physical disability never weakened his accomplishments and who recently passed away at age 76.

Michael is a former chemistry professor at Mount. St. Marys

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