Salpointe sweeps Southern Arizona science fair

Arizona Daily Wildcat Photo courtesy Flandrau Science Center Scarlett Coley, a student at Tucson High Magnet School, explains her project, "The Effects of Antioxidant (Vitamin C) on Manduca Sextas" to Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair judges Tuesday. Coley received first place in the individual medicine and health category. She also won awards from the Sonoran Anthropod Studies Institute, the U.S. Navy/Marines, the U.S. Army and the Veteran's Affairs Medical Center Research Service.

The information Filip needed, daily world temperature readings, was sent to him in November from the University of Arizona Climatology lab in block form, without any separations by line or space.

Filip, a senior at Salpointe Catholic High School, admitted he was in way over his head at this point. But after spending a month formatting the data, he finally had it in a form he could use to enter into a spreadsheet.

About five months after Filip began working on his climatology project, he was awarded one of two grand prizes in the Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair Friday night.

The prize awards Filip with an expense-paid trip to Louisville, Ky. to compete in the International Science and Technology Fair. His project studies the short-term temperature effects in the lunar-global climate complex.

"I was really worried when I first got the information downloaded," he said. "At times I was almost absolutely sure I would have to abandon the project just for the grade in the class."

Filip reached a second obstacle when he realized he had to translate the mathematical formulas he was given into formulas used in spreadsheets.

"I was worried I was not going to make it on time. Time became a huge issue," he said.

Filip's project disproved three current theories - the Reflection Theory, the Barycenter Effect Theory and the Atmospheric Tide Theory - which were formulated to explain the Moon's affect on the Earth's temperature.

Filip determined that no further reasonable theories could be formulated as to why the effect he observed - that a full moon cool Earth's temperatures at the subtropic latitudes, warms the arctic latitudes, and has a slight but definitive warming affect on the tropics - exists.

When Filip was a freshman, he also won the Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair grand prize award. This year was the 43rd year for the contest, held ever year at the UA during spring break.

Filip said competing in the International Fair three years ago was an invaluable asset for attending the fair this year.

"Seeing what it is like and seeing what wins and what doesn't. I don't know how better to prepare," he said.

From now until May, when the international fair is held, Filip plans to expand his research to compete with the 1,000 projects from about 50 countries.

Paula Johnson, chief judge of the regional fair, said the two grand prize winners were picked from the best project in each of the 13 high school categories.

The students were interviewed by the judges Tuesday because their depth of knowledge about their project had a lot to do with the judges' decisions, Johnson said.

The other grand prize winner was a group project, also from Salpointe. Coleen McDonald, Mary Thorton and Julie Shelton won for their project on Blazing Sunspots.

For the first time, the students who created the two top regional projects also received a four-year scholarship to the UA.

Michael Cusanovich, vice president for research and graduate studies, said the university gave out 14 scholarships to students at the international fair last year, three of whom came to the UA.

"We hosted the international fair last year and we gave out scholarships last year and it dawned on us that it was a very successful way to recruit so we decided to do it at the regional fair also," Cusanovich said.

Filip said receiving the scholarship will change his outlook of attending the UA, but he has been applying to Ivy League schools such as Dartmouth. He has also applied to MIT.

Both grand prize projects won five awards in addition to the grand prize. The awards were given by 26 science-oriented organizations, both local and national. The fair also gave awards to the top four places in each science category plus the two top awards.

Eight hundred fifty-four awards were given out to the 1,000 projects that were selected to compete from the local school fairs in the Southern Arizona region, which consists of 505 schools from Yuma to the New Mexico border and from south of Phoenix to the Mexican border.

All projects at the elementary school level received awards.

"If the projects are good enough to get here they at least are going to get an honorable mention," said Jack Johnson, director of the Flandrau Science Center, which coordinates the fair.

"We're trying to promote science and engineering to give kids some goals beyond what they have now," he said.

Flandrau has been involved with the fair since 1990, when the dean of science asked the center to manage the fair, Johnson said.

In addition to offering a scholarship to the two top winners, this year the UA also stabilized funding for the fair, he said.

Johnson said Cusanovich and Provost Paul Sypherd were responsible for the funding given by the UA sponsors.

Cusanovich said the funding was stabilized by adding the fair to the operations budget to insure the funds are available on an annual basis.

The fair was sponsored this year by the Kiwanis Club of Sunshine, Southwest Gas, Tucson Electric Power Co., the UA colleges of agriculture, engineering, medicine, pharmacy and science, and Cusanovich's office.