HOHENFELS, Germany -- Two students from Hohenfels Middle/High School are headed to the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium national competition in Hunt Valley, Md., April 29 -- May 2.
Senior Chloe Holland and junior Jacob Nantz earned their spots after competing at the European regional competition held in Germany last month.
JSHS is sponsored by the research arm of the Department of Defense and seeks to prepare and support students to contribute as future scientists and engineers by promoting and rewarding original research and experimentation at the high school level.
Out of the more than 60 entrants in the competition, only 23 students from across Europe were chosen to present their findings at the symposium in Riedstadt. Presentations were divided into two categories; oral and poster presentations. A third Hohenfels student, 11th-grader Ian Rodman, also attended the regionals as a poster presenter.
"We had to find background research, and conduct individual experiments," said Holland. "Then you collect all the data, and analyze it to see if your hypothesis was right."
After their presentation, the students faced a six minute question period by the judges.
"That's more intimidating than the actual presentation because they worked and worked on the presentation, but you don't know what kind of questions they judges are going to ask," said Joyce Dusenberry, HMHS chemistry and physics teacher. She served as student mentor during the JSHS project. "That's a challenge, but it's good because that's the way to show how much they really know about their topic."
Nantz took the top spot in the poster category with his research on the strength and effectiveness of domestically produced bioplastics.
"Mine was kind of touching on global problems," Nantz said. "I feel like we have a huge problem with petroleum and litter and … if this project could be made into something better it could help the world."
Bioplastics are derived from renewable biomass sources, rather than petroleum or natural gas as in common plastics. Nantz created five different plastics using banana peels, corn starch, potato starch, algae agar, and whole milk protein. He then used a force meter to break each one and measure its strength.
As a wearer of dental braces, Holland's research was a bit more personal, focusing on the effect that braces have on the number of bacteria in the mouth.
"I swabbed people's mouths and put the samples on agar plates and let them culture for two weeks and then counted the bacteria clusters," Holland explained.
Holland took fourth place in the oral presentation category and earned her spot at nationals.
"Only the top two winners get to present orally at nationals," Holland said, "so I have to rework mine to be able to put it on a poster."
Nantz has been busy as well, reworking his presentation.
"There were no real restrictions at regionals, but going into nationals, there's an exact layout I have to follow," he said.
The students will be accompanied by Dusenberry, who was also chosen as teacher of the year for JSHS.
"I think they select people for the teacher award who have been involved with the program and try to encourage kids to participate," Dusenberry said. "This is about the seventh year that we've had students that been selected to actually participate in the program."
Her students see it differently.
"She's the bomb dot com," Holland declared. "She helped with the materials, helped me design the experiment, she was the main facilitator and chief editor!"
In addition to cash prizes, scholarships and bragging rights, the JSHS competitions offer students something more intangible but just as valuable.
"One of the benefits of the JSHS experience for these students is that it allows students to do their own original research, and encourages creative thinking," said Dusenberry. "When you have to actually present your original scientific research in front of professionals with PhDs and get critiqued on that, that's a really good experience and will look great on a college application."
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