Full STEM ahead! Ten of our Middle School students recently represented D-E at the Bergen SciChallenge, standing out in a highly competitive field of more than 175 student presenters across the state. After placing an impressive first in Mathematics and Computer Science for his project on whether increasing the complexity of an AI model improves the diagnostic accuracy of malaria detection, Jacob L. ’30 is advancing to the next stage of the competition, which is to apply to the national Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge. In addition, Adison K. ’31, Ethan Z. ’31, and Aadya J. ’31 placed second in Environmental Science for their project about which LED light color can most efficiently grow microgreens.
To showcase students’ hard work, Ms. Larionoff, Innovation Coordinator, facilitated a mini STEM Symposium in the Makerspace on campus, where they could present their research to the greater D-E community. Jacob said he had conducted a similar science project in the summer about rainfall and was fascinated by the idea of researching a topic that would be “much more beneficial to society,” as malaria is a potentially deadly disease. Ken E. ’30 said he was interested in finding a solution to the wasteful overflow of milk that can occur when coffee shops make lattes, so he developed a prototype device that dispenses the correct amount of milk. He said, “This not only helps reduce a coffee shop’s carbon footprint, but also saves them money.”
“It takes immense initiative and curiosity to propose an original project, critical thinking and perseverance to navigate the inevitable experimental roadblocks, and genuine risk-taking to engineer creative solutions to real-world problems,” remarked Ms. Larionoff. Congratulations to our middle schoolers who have exemplified innovation in action!
