Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge
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The Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge (DCYSC) is an annual science and engineering research and exhibit competition for students in grade 5 through 8 and was created in 1999. It is sponsored primarily by Discovery Communications, Science Service, and Elmer's Glue. Competitors must qualify for DCYSC by entering in an International Science and Engineering (ISEF) affiliated science fair. Judges from these fairs then nominate the top ten percent of students to advance to the DCYSC.
After being nominated for DCYSC, students must complete an application which includes writing several essays. The essays are then evaluated for communication abilities by DCYSC judges who select 400 finalists in August. In September, the judges narrow it down to 40 finalists who receive an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C. to compete in the October finals.
The finals are comprised of two parts. The first is a research presentation, accounting for 20% of the total score, held at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, the National Academy of Sciences, or another building that varies from year to year. Projects are judged not on scientific merit but with more on the student's ability to communicate his/her project effectively. The second part is a series of six science-related challenges that take place at the National Institutes of Health, the University of Maryland, or another location in Maryland that varies every year. Each challenge is concluded with some type of presentation (e.g., a radio show, a TV show, or a news conference) and is worth 10% of the students' total score. Students also present a simple science experiment, known as a Whelmer, in front of cameras for 15% of their score. The remaining 5% comes from teamwork, as the finalists are split into eight colored teams of five each for the science challenges.
The grand prize is a $20,000 scholarship, followed by $10,000 for second place and $5,000 for third. 4th-40th receive $500 each. There are also numerous "discretionary" awards, presented by the Discovery Channel and its subsidiaries (such as TLC and the Animal Planet).
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[edit] 2006 Winners
[edit] Nolan Kamitaki
Nolan Kamitaki won first place and a $20,000 scholarship in the finals. His project was entitled "Arsenic in the Schools and the Students."
Nolan became concerned about environmental arsenic contamination after newspaper articles highlighted high-arsenic concentrations in his community's soil. He wondered whether arsenic concentrations in people living nearby might reflect the arsenic concentrations in soil. Nolan took soil samples from several local schools and hair samples from the schools' students, then analyzed them for arsenic concentrations. Although the soil arsenic concentrations were frequently significantly higher than recommended levels, arsenic concentrations in the students' hair were within a safe range.
[edit] Jacob Hurwitz
Jacob Hurwitz won second place and a $10,000 scholarship in the finals. His project was entitled "Disumbocoblated".
Jacob and his partner Scott were inspired to study people's understanding of word permutations based on a chain e-mail suggesting that readers can easily decipher scrambled text. They decided to examine how demographic factors, such as a subject's education, family history, and school attendance affect the ability to read and comprehend passages of scrambled words. Jacob and Scott composed six paragraphs and wrote a computer program to scramble the letters in the paragraphs' words. They had students at their school, the Robert Frost Middle School in Rockville, Maryland, read the permuted paragraphs and answer five comprehension questions. Jacob and Scott found that intensive scrambling slowed the volunteers' reading and lowered their comprehension. However, subjects who attended preschool or whose parents attended college performed best. Subjects with frequent school absences performed worst.
[edit] Amy David
Amy David won third place and a $5,000 scholarship in the finals. Her project was entitled "When the Dust Settles, Year 2: A Multivariate Study of the Patterns of Near and Far Dispersal of Windblown Particulate Matter"
Last year, Amy and Jayne found that airborne dust increases the melt rate of snow. This year, they decided to assess how dust from dirt roads common in their community might reach the snow pack in nearby mountains as well as how dust affects the melt rate of snow on which it settles. Amy and Jayne measured how much dust scatters from dirt roads by designing and installing sampling devices and placing them at intervals successively further from a dirt road. They also collected snow at increasing distances from their sampling sites and tested it for reflectivity, melt rate, and amounts of particulate matter. They found that dust scatters in predictable patterns from heavily used dirt roads. Snow contaminated with dust melts significantly faster than snow without dust.
[edit] 2005 Winners
[edit] Neela Thangada
Neela Thangada won first place and a $20,000 scholarship in the finals. Neela's science fair project was entitled "Effects of Various Nutrient Concentrations on the Cloning of the Eye of Solanum tuberosum at Multiple Stages".
Inspired by a biology textbook's idea of a potato cloning experiment, Neela set out to explore plant cloning. She wanted to determine how different nutrient concentrations affected the multiple stages of growth in a potato. Neela removed 60 shoot tips growing from potatoes. After sterilizing the tips, she excised the bottom two segments, the meristem and primordial. She placed each in a test tube of half-strength or full-strength nutrient solution and incubated them. During her first trial, all the samples became contaminated. Neela persevered and redid the entire experiment, finding that the potato clones did indeed grow better in the full-strength solution.
[edit] Nilesh Tripuraneni
Nilesh Tripuraneni won second place and a $10,000 scholarship at the finals. His project was called "Solar Production of Hydrogen from Seawater via Electrolysis."
Nilesh had heard about hydrogen-powered cars but understood that producing hydrogen requires fossil fuels. He sought to find a more environmentally friendly approach through solar hydrogen production. Nilesh built a solar-powered device that ran an electric current through a beaker full of saltwater. The result was electrolysis, by which water is split into hydrogen and oxygen. By clever manipulation of various gas laws, Nilesh measured the temperature, pressure , and volume of the hydrogen gas produced. He found that seawater produced almost as much hydrogen as solutions containing sulfuric acid or sodium hydroxide.
[edit] Mary Lou Hedberg
Mary Lou Hedberg won third place and a $5,000 scholarship in the finals. Her project was entitled "Paddle Perfection? Seeking New Designs with Flume Testing."
While kayaking, Mary Lou was mesmerized by the swirling patterns her paddle made. She wondered whether the swirls represented lost energy, and, if so, whether paddles could be made to be more efficient. Mary Lou built a flume made of PVC tubing, a whirlpool pump, and a butterfly valve to control the flow. She made model paddles from plastic spoons that she softened and reshaped, and then built a device to measure horizontal and vertical forces on each paddle. After testing four blade shapes and three shaft angles – taking more than 300 measurements – she concluded that a spoon-shaped blade with a bent shaft delivered the most force. She has filed a provisional patent application for the design.
[edit] Science challenge themes
Since 2003 the themes for DCYSC have followed scientific curiosities and built activities around them.
- In 2003, the activities were based on the 100 year anniversary of the first flight of the Wright Brothers, December 17, 1903.
- In 2004, the activities were based on the 100 year anniversary of Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
- In 2005, inspired by the events of Hurricane Katrina, the activities were about understanding natural disasters.
- In 2006, the activities were based on the theme "Disease Detectives" due to the H5N1 avian influenza scare.
