Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Young science minds whirl at county fair

Hundreds of projects fill the Sun Dome, where earnest Hillsborough kids explain their work.

By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published February 24, 2005

TAMPA - Justus Roberts II had a flash of inspiration while reading his anatomy textbook at Wharton High School.

The chapter on cytokines - a group of proteins that help regulate the immune system - got the future cardiologist thinking how stem cells might treat the secondary effects of a stroke.

With the help of researchers at the University of South Florida medical school, where Roberts, 17, has an internship, the idea became his science fair project. The Wharton junior and 789 other students, including his younger sister, packed the USF Sun Dome on Wednesday to try to win the county fair and move on to state competition.

Participants ranged from kindergarteners to high school seniors. They studied things as simple as the strength of eggs and the absorbency of diapers, and as complex as computer circuitry and the role of antioxidants in slowing cell damage.

Several students got their ideas from school projects. They had to sign documents, along with their teachers, stating their parents had not done the work.

Roberts has participated in the county science fair seven years, winning best of fair once and progressing to the state level five times.

"I have to ask him 20 times, what does it mean? And, how does it relate to the real world?" said his father, Justus Roberts, who took the day off from work to support his son and daughter, Jasmine, a sixth-grader competing in her second county science fair.

Jasmine, who studied whether hotel ice or hotel toilet water had more bacteria, said her brother's successes and parents' backing led her to get involved.

This time out, she discovered the ice carried more bacteria than the toilets. She planned to send the information to the government, and also to the hotels where she collected samples.

Especially at the upper grade levels, the judges acknowledged they could not be as expert as the students in every field. But through questioning, they aimed to determine whether the young scientists understood the scientific method and their own work.

Today's award ceremony, begins at 6:15 p.m. and is open to the public. Twenty-six students will move to the state science fair, and the district can send two high school students to international competition.

[Last modified February 24, 2005, 00:53:06]