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BURNT HILLS: Burnt Hills-Ballston
Lake senior 18-year-old Matthew Wolf can now be
counted among the science elite of US high school
students. His research paper on carbon dioxide and
global warming resulted in his being named one of
300 national semi-finalists this month in the Intel
Science Talent Search 2008, America’s oldest and
most prestigious high school science competition.
The students’
research papers were chosen as the best among 1,602
national entries this year. Each semi-finalist
receives a $1,000 prize plus $1,000 for their
school. Forty of the 300 students were named as
finalists on January 30, and will go to further
competition in Washington D.C. in March for much
larger scholarships.
Wolf’s project,
entitled “A Comprehensive Study on CO2: Measurements
on Lakes, Howe Caverns, and CO2 Sequestration
Utilizing Oak Wood Ash,” is the result of three
years of study in a special Burnt Hills-Ballston
Lake Science Research course under the guidance of
teacher Regina Reals, plus research for the past two
years with mentor Dr. Larry Lewis, a chemist at the
GE Global Research Center in Niskayuna.
While
simultaneously taking the usual high school course
sequence of biology, chemistry, and physics, BH-BL
Science Research pupils devote a large part of their
school and summer hours to research, Reals explains.
Students typically start with a year of study to
learn research techniques and identify a topic that
interests them. Then, after finding a mentor to
sponsor them, the students’ junior and senior years
— including summers — are spent in actual research.
Reducing CO2 to reduce global
warming
One of 12
BH-BL pupils currently in the Science Research
class, Wolf spent the past two years learning about
and testing carbon dioxide levels in various
substances, in various depths of nearby Ballston
Lake, Saratoga Lake and Round Lake, and in the air
and water at Howe Caverns. Excessive carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere is a primary cause of global
warming. Hence methods to reduce C02 levels are the
focus of much environmental research all over the
globe.
“Sequestration” of carbon dioxide refers to various
methods of capturing it either through chemical
reactions with other substances or through
physically containing and storing it underwater in
oceans and lakes or underground in old mines, as is
being tried now in Finland. Wolf’s research related
to both chemical and physical sequestration of C02.
“So far
there’s been no ‘silver bullet’ for capturing carbon
dioxide,” he says. “Every method of sequestration
has its drawbacks.” He fears that efforts to seal
carbon dioxide deep underwater could leak and be
ineffective or even dangerous. A sudden release of
large amounts of carbon dioxide into the air can
kill people, as has happened near volcanic eruptions
when oxygen levels fall below what humans and
animals need to survive.
Geo-chemical sequestration methods hold more
promise, Wolf feels. His research showed that a
cheap and readily available waste material like wood
ash can be dissolved in water and used to chemically
bond with and “capture” large amounts of carbon
dioxide. He theorizes that such sequestered carbon
dioxide could be stored in underground caves or old
mines.
Broader understanding of
science
Wolf is
hoping to continue his carbon dioxide research in
college and beyond. He plans to major in chemistry
and has applied to six colleges, colleges he is
still waiting to hear from. The opportunity to help
humankind through environmental or medical
breakthroughs is what has made science his favorite
subject for many years.
When asked
about the hardest parts of his research project,
Wolf laughingly describes how tricky it was to keep
his boat from drifting while taking water samples on
Ballston Lake, Saratoga Lake, and Round Lake. His
samples needed to be taken at multiple depths at a
precise spot on each lake. What surprised him the
most, though, was how many drafts his research paper
needed to go through before it was ready. “I never
really thought of science as something where
communication was so important,” he says. “That has
been the biggest learning. Writing a scientific
paper is very different from doing a lab report in
class.”
Wolf also
feels fortunate to have been able to work with
mentor Dr. Larry Lewis, a chemist at the GE Global
Research Center in Niskayuna. Lewis not only took
Wolf under his wing for the carbon dioxide project,
but has also been an invaluable resource, Reals
says, as Scientist in Residence to the whole class
for several years. “He often comes into class to
talk with all the students about such things as
setting up a scientifically valid experiment or how
to analyze and report findings,” she explains.
Fourth BH-BL Intel winner
Wolf is
the only Intel semi-finalist in the NY Capital
Region and the fourth BH-BL student to win this
honor since the school’s Science Research pupils
began entering the contest seven years ago. Previous
winners were Elizabeth Allocco and her 2007
cognitive science paper on measuring self-awareness,
Jessie Klapper and her 2005 biology paper on
ribozymes that may be useful in measuring breast
cancer resistance, and Olivia Partyka and her 2002
paper on superconducting materials.
Now a
junior at Brandeis University, Klapper has continued
her research and is part of a six-person team whose
work on ribozymes and breast cancer has just been
published in the journal BMC Bioinformatics.
(See
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/8/469/abstract
)
With four
Intel semi-finalists in seven years, Burnt
Hills-Ballston Lake has also had more success in the
Intel competition than any other area high school.
BH-BL science department chair George Seymour points
to a number of factors for this. “You’ve heard the
saying that ‘it takes a whole village to raise a
child.’ Well, it takes a whole science department to
raise an Intel winner,” he says. “Without strong
support from the Board of Education on down, these
results wouldn’t happen.”
Seymour
notes that teachers in other high school subjects
take time to help science pupils with their written
and oral presentations. Like the parents of
high-performing athletes, parents of top science
pupils also make sacrifices of time and money to
support their child and must often arrange family
life around their offspring’s project, especially
during the summer.
Another
key factor is the relationships that BH-BL has been
able to cultivate with potential mentors at local
businesses and laboratories. “The mentor scientists
and engineers from area universities and research
facilities like GE, Albany Medical Center and the
state’s Wadsworth Laboratories are a crucial
ingredient,” Seymour says. “We feel blessed to work
in a community where science and our students are
supported on so many levels.”
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