Beatrice students qualify for national science competition

Conversations with family members about agriculture and an interest in how different factors affect living things led McKenzie Wiese into a science project that has now qualified for the National Junior Academy of Science competition.

Wiese’s project was to find out if gene manipulation in corn plants affects transpiration. She said transpiration is the process of a plant losing water through evaporation.

“It is both positive and negative for plants,” Wiese said.

In comparing the transpiration rates of manipulated and non-manipulated corn, Wiese grew several varieties of gene-manipulated corn and a control group of regular corn, then measured the amount of water transpired by the individual corn plant.

The project earned a silver medal at the regionals and placed her in the top five at the state competition, qualifying her for Nationals next February in Chicago. Wiese’s project was also recognized by the U.S. Army, and she received the Marian Schultz Environmental Scholarship for $1,000.

She said the interest in this experiment came through a combination of factors.

“A lot of conversations with my dad and brother are about agriculture,” Wiese said, adding that her father has said this is a prime time for agriculture.

In addition, Wiese said her interest in becoming a respiratory therapist also played into it, because she is interested in how things around us affect us.

“This is doing the same with corn,” she said.

Wiese and classmates Mariah Ostermann, Nathaniel Knobel, Allison Havekost, Alicia Lenners, Courtney Wallman and Elizabeth Larsen took their projects to regional competition on March 29.

Out of 30 students participating, 10 were chosen to advance to a second round. Five BHS students advanced, Ostermann, Lenners, Knobel, Havekost and Wiese.

Larsen’s project explored the connection between listening to different types of music and short-term memory.

“I’m really involved in music myself,” Larsen said. “Music helps me study, and I wanted to see if that might be true for everybody.”

Wallman’s project looked at the breakdown of aspartame over time with exposure to heat.

She said the idea for the project is the result of an email her mother received saying that when diet soda gets heated up it separates and some of what it separates to can be poisonous.

Ostermann’s project was a study about the water-retaining qualities of algae when added to different types of soil.

She said interest in her project came from seeing algae on the ponds at golf courses while competing with the girls golf team in the fall.

Ostermann’s project received a bronze medal at regionals.

Lenner’s project involved the investigation of a mutually beneficial relationship between yeast and marigold plant roots, hypothesizing that their relationship would allow plants to grow in the presence of diesel fuel contamination.

Her project earned a bronze medal at regionals.

Knobel’s project looked at the efficiency of an electromagnetic coil by the variation of the number of turns of copper wire on the coil and its ability to fling a copper ring from the coil.

He said this kind of thing is part of science fiction stories that he enjoys.

Knobel’s project received a silver medal at regionals and advanced to state competition.

Havekost’s project involved an exploration of DNA technology that ranged from extracting DNA from a fruit, building a gel electrophoresis chamber and exploring the similarities of fruit fly and human genes in the diseases of cancer and diabetes.

Havekost earned a gold medal at regionals and advanced to state.

Knobel, Havekost and Wiese participated in the state competition on April 18 against 20 students from across Nebraska. The top 10 were chosen to attend Nationals with the top five getting monetary support from the NJAS to attend.

Wiese was named to the top five, the first time for a BHS student.

Also, Knobel’s project was recognized by the U.S. Army, and Havekost was recognized by the Women’s GeoScience Association.