The excitement and energy at the 2015 Rhode Island Science and Engineering Fair (RISEF) held last weekend at the Community College of Rhode Island in Warwick rivaled some of the strongest chemical reactions. But like a missing particle in experimental calculations, Warwick’s public school students were conspicuously absent.

“One of the interesting things is that this is the first year that the only [high school] school in Warwick doing the science fair is Bishop Hendricken. No public schools here do this anymore, two years ago we lost Gorton, and then this is the first year that we don’t have Vets. Vets had done the competition right along,” said Mark Fontaine, RISEF’s Director for the last 19 years.

 Nearly 250 young scientists from Rhode Island’s middle and high schools converged at CCRI’s Great Hall to present the results of their scientific investigations. Students competed for first, second and third place awards, many grants and scholarships. 

“Today is really the culmination of between three and six months worth of work on the students part. Science Fairs typically start in the schools in September, although some students started over the summer,” said Fontaine. “There’s two ways that kids wind up here usually, either they have a traditional school fair where there’s a lot of projects and winners are chosen and sent here. Each school that’s registered can send up to 15 children. Other schools have science clubs, and they may only have four or five projects, and they all come here.”

Split almost equally between middle and high school students, the competition is comprised of a junior and senior division respectively. The top two senior division winners will represent Rhode Island at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh in May.

 Schools set up their own fairs as independent entities with their own criteria that are governed by RISEF rules. This year’s competition was scored by 166 judges comprised of high school teachers, professional engineers, scientists, medical professionals and doctors.  

“I think the competition is going very well, we have a lot of special community judges on the floor who are judging in their specialty career area, so our students are being put to the test and I love that,” said Karen Fletcher, a middle school teacher and RISEF’s Display and Safety Supervisor.

Elaine and James Magyar of Rhode Island College, who have served as Head Judges for the last 15 years, were pleased with the competition’s progress.  

“It’s just really exciting to see every year, while we’ve been doing this over and over again, you realize that for the youngsters this is a really big deal. There are a lot of children here who have really worked hard,” said Elaine Magyar.

Judges used a rubric that is broken down into major categories, originality, scientific thought, clarity, and thoroughness, amongst others. Special attention is given to the students’ papers, typically 12-25 pages in length. They then generate a scorecard that ranges from zero to 95, which are used to tabulate and sort winners.

“The top two students will go on to a competition with 1,700 kids from all over the world, which is a pretty amazing event,” said Fontaine.

Bishop Hendricken took full advantage of contest rules and entered the maximum 15 allotted students into the competition.

“I got a group of three adults and four teenagers and I wanted to see if eating breakfast increases test scores. So my procedure was I wrote my own tests consisting of four subjects,” said Hendricken freshman Nick Bullock of his project With Breakfast Comes Brains in the Behavioral & Social Science category. His mother, uncle and friends served as test subjects, and he went on to achieve 3rd Grant.

Sophomore Fred Choi’s out of this world submission in the Computer Science category, entitled Orbital Selection, researched the formation of planetary systems.

“I created a computer program that will simulate the gravity between bodies in planetary systems. I wrote this all from scratch,” said Choi, who was awarded 2nd Grant. “There’s sort of a natural selection of orbits within a planetary system, because if planets are in a non circular orbit, they can either be flung out or eventually crash into other planets. There’s a natural tendency for planetary systems to end up having perfectly circular orbits over time.”

Four Hendricken students entered into the Engineering: Electrical and Mechanical category: Alden Pratt with Battery Declination Rates, Ian Crowe with Hovercraft: The effect of Skirt Size and Ventilation on Lift, Nick Davenport with Column Strength and Thomas Saccoccio with Steam Efficiency. Crowe and Davenport would go on to receive 2nd Grant while Pratt and Saccoccio received 3rd Grant.

Brothers Andrew and Paul Hong teamed up for their project, with one of the longest titles in the competition, Discovering and Assessing the Effects of Associating Eichhornia Crassipes with Strains of Actinomycetes for the Detoxification of Pb(II) Contaminated Water in the Environmental Sciences category.

“We’ve taken two indigenous species a plant and bacteria, and fused them together to create a synergistic effect on sucking up pollutants from freshwater bodies,” said Paul Hong, adding that they started water collection in August and partnered up because of the extreme challenge of the project. They received 2nd Grant for their work.

Freshmen Luca Ialongo, Cory Morris and Nick berg each submitted a project for the competition’s Microbiology category.

“I like the Italian bread from the bakery, but some say that’s not as healthy as say wheat,” said Ialongo of his submission Healthy Bread – Got Mold? which achieved 3rd Grant. “I proved them wrong because this molded faster, because it didn’t have all the fake ingredients like artificial flavorings and all that.”

“I was inspired to do this project by the increasing energy rates,” said Morris while explaining his hypothesis for Go Green to Save Green by Growing Green, which also achieved 3rd Grant. “I was aware that algae was used to desalinize water, so I decided to see if algae could be used to produce electricity by the process of photosynthesis and purify sewage at the same time,” adding that he planned to continue this project over course of his high school career.

“The concept of this project is inspired by the Center for Disease control’s scramble to find a solution for the antimicrobial resistance going on right now, said an animated Nick Berg, who researched his project at Hendricken’s labs the last three months to create E. coli, E. coli, Why Will You Not Die?

“We are locked in an evolutionary arms race with bacteria and whomever comes out on top will be the only one at the top,” said Berg, who recommends switching brands of cleaning products every three months to prevent a super strain of bacteria in homes. He went on to win 1st Grant at the competition.

Ryan Bayne used his science fair project to explore areas of science unknown to him with his Physics and Astronomy category submission Cloaking Using Lenses.

“I didn’t know much about the refraction of light, so I thought it would be interesting to study that,” he said before going on to achieve 2nd Grant.

Rounding out the competition were three Hendricken students who submitted entries for the Plant Sciences Category. Anthony Bartolomeo submitted Effects of Acid Rain on the Growth of Common Garden Plants, Brendan Lawrence entered Plants are Chill and William Provost entered The Height and Health of Pea Plants under Four Different Fertilizer. Bartolomeo and Lawrence achieved 2nd Grant, Provost received 3rd Grant.

While the RISEF has contracted in size, Fontaine is optimistic about this and future competitions.

“We’re smaller, but we’re accepting that as the new norm,” said Fontaine. “There was a time, when I started, where projects filled the main atrium. I think mainly that has to do with changing demographics in the state, and the student population is getting smaller.”

“We’d love to have more kids in the competition, but what’s here today is pretty amazing,” said Fontaine.