Frist Campus Center at Princeton University was buzzing with scientific discussions on Saturday, April 14, 2012 during the poster portion of the tenth annual Chemagination high school competition, sponsored by the Princeton and Trenton Sections of ACS.

Forty-one students from seven schools in central and northern New Jersey were part of “Chemagine-Nation.”  Forming teams of two to three students in one of four categories (Alternate Energy, New Materials, Environment and Medicine/Health), the schools’ entrants applied chemistry to create an idea that would improve people’s lives 25 years in the future. Fostering scientific teamwork, the competition asks the teams to brainstorm, develop ideas, and formulate a feature article for a high school science magazine, along with cover art for the story. These articles were evaluated by a masterful scientific team of nine doctorate-level judges. The second phase was the preparation of the poster for the Princeton event where the teams defended the science underlying their innovation during interviews with three judges. Projects were judged for scientific soundness, clarity, creativity, and teamwork.

 During the poster event at Princeton University, 12th Congressional District U.S. Congressman (central NJ), Rep. Rush Holt, PhD, engaged students in scientific discussion about their individual projects. The students and parents enjoyed the attention from this former Assistant Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and researcher on alternative energy. Rep. Holt, who served on the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching, clearly demonstrated the importance of fostering innovative scientific thinking among our youth.

First place winners will advance to a regional competition on June 2, 2012 at the ACS Mid - Atlantic Regional Meeting (MARM) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore Campus.

And the winners are:

First Place:

Medicine/Health:

The ProPancreas: A Diabetic Revolution

Kellie Heom, Isabella Grabski, Rachel Yang
BERGEN COUNTY ACADEMIES
 

New Materials:

Energy Exploding Enzymes: Power of the Protein

Aastha Chokshi, Anup Regunathan, Saavanth Velury
WEST WINDSOR-PLANSBORO HIGH SCHOOL North

Environment:

MemNotes

Aayush Visaria, Brandon Chu
WEST WINDSOR-PLANSBORO HIGH SCHOOL South
 

Alternate Energy:

Lightening Farms: Electric Agriculture

MacCallum Robertson, Daniel Echeverri, Mark Khusidman
WEST WINDSOR-PLANSBORO HIGH SCHOOL South
 

Second Place:

Medicine/Health:

The NanoHero

Pranitha Rayapudi, Danika Baskar, Pavithra Arunachalam

WEST WINDSOR-PLANSBORO HIGH SCHOOL North

 

New Materials:

Silica Aerogels: A Reflective Issue

Rohan Iyengar, Byron Chiu, Rahul Vanchinathan

WEST WINDSOR-PLANSBORO HIGH SCHOOL North

 

Environment:

From Cotton, To Plastic, To H2O

Katherine Collins and Lauren Snieckus

Pascack Valley High School

 

Alternate Energy:

Pyramids of Light: The Foundation of Today’s Alternative Energy Solution

Nehal Gupta, Jayati Verma, Jhillika Patel

WEST WINDSOR-PLANSBORO HIGH SCHOOL North 

 

 

The local Chemagination competition is proud to be celebrating its 10th year by broadening its reach to more counties in New Jersey. The contributions of the teacher advisors from the participating NJ schools were recognized at the awards ceremony. They were Dr. Deok-Yang (Doug) Kim, Bergen County Academies; Nicholas Johnson, Hopewell Valley Central High School; Cindy Reese and Christopher Nilsen, Pascack Valley High School; Thomas Horsley, Pennington High School; Ronald Brandt, MBA, West Orange High School; Julie Norato, West Windsor-Plainsboro HS North; Cindy Jaworsky, West Windsor-Plainsboro HS South.

The 2011-2012 New Jersey competition activities were supported in part by a National ACS grant to the PACS based on the proposal submitted by Dr. Barbara Ameer, PACS Chemagination Committee Chair and Coordinator.

By Barbara Ameer,

2012 Chemagination Chair