Poolesville High School welcomed groups from schools all over the region last week to display student research to their peers in science.
Poolesville senior and Global Ecology student Marlene Haggblade of Poolesville has been researching fungal populations in American chestnuts with a West Virginia University professor since this summer. She was inspired by a tree stand on the school's property affected by the fungal blight that killed 4 billion chestnuts in the eastern United States by the 1950s.
"When I walked to soccer practice every day I saw the chestnuts, and they used to be beautiful trees and that's what they've become," Haggblade said of her research studying chestnuts that have survived, which will be completed over the school year. "...I've learned that research is tricky and changes a lot, but it's been a great experience."
Poolesville High School hosted the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology's regional student conference last week, a chance for students in Poolesville's Global Ecology and Science, Math and Computer Science magnet houses and Independent Studies Program to present their research to visiting students.
"It's kids talking to kids, and that's where the power comes in," Joyce Bailey, head of the school's Global Ecology program.
More than 60 Poolesville students participated as guides, presenters or other volunteers, and five schools from throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, including Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, sent teams of five students, said Mark Curran, head of the Science, Math and Computer Science House. This was Poolesville's third year participating in the annual conference but the first time it played host, he said.
"It's pretty fun, there's a lot of interesting people here," Sara Erkal, a sophomore at Biotechnology High School in Freehold, N.J., said after a workshop detailing a bioreactor project a group of Poolesville students are working on during their own time. "I thought it was really cool that they had their own experiment and it's a student-run thing."
The day began with a keynote speech on the Human Genome project, and other presentations included population dynamics of trees on the school's property, functions and other mathematical relationships in 3-D graphing programs and designing and manufacturing intricate objects and parts. A representative of the genomic researcher J. Craig Venter Institute led a workshop on the H1N1 virus.
Each group was assigned still and motion cameras so they could make movies of their experience at the conference with the help of students in Poolesville's Humanities program.
"They want to do everything, they're really attentive," said senior Nakutolab Desalegn of Clarksburg, part of a six-student team that made the bioreactor with the help of scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The students are using the bioreactor to create biodiesel fuel from algae and will develop research projects using the device.
