West Lauderdale High competes
at international science fair
By By Georgia E. Frye / staff writer
May 8, 2003
Next week, six West Lauderdale High School students will get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to mingle with astronauts and Nobel Prize winners.
The students plan to leave Saturday for a 14-hour bus ride to the International Science Fair in Cleveland, Ohio, where they will compete against 1,200 other students from all over the world.
Two students also may qualify for an invitation to the Nobel Prize Ceremony in Sweden.
Seniors Tyler Skelton, Lauren Goodman and Courtney Godwin will take their joint project a study of how drugs like antibiotics, hormones and ibuprofen threaten the environment when paired together to the Cleveland Convention Center.
They hope to qualify for scholarships, cash prizes and trips.
Drug project
The team chose the project because of a study that revealed 80 percent of drugs taken by humans and livestock emerge from the body intact, creating mixtures of drugs that are lethal to the environment.
Their project, as well as all others, will be judged on scientific imagination and input.
Skelton said his group has an optimistic attitude, but he is aware of how tough the competition will be.
Also competing is senior Bridget Sarah Confait whose project focuses on the effects of second-hand smoke on first-graders.
She said she found that children who are subjected to second-hand smoke have more health problems, learning problems and general allergies.
She said they also are on more medication and have more upper respiratory problems compared to students who are not around second-hand smoke.
Other attendees
Also attending the competition are two alternates, Crystal Moore, a senior, and Madalyn Ivy, a junior. They will assist the other students in setting up their projects.
Moore was a finalist at the International Science Fair in 2001 and also won the U.S. Army Award and the Intel Environment Award at the 2003 state fair for her project on effects de-icing agents have on the environment.
Mississippi holds seven regional fairs; winners of those fairs advance to the state science fair.
Fourteen individual winners from the state fair and three teams a total of 23 students overall will take the trip to Cleveland.
There, contestants will set up their presentations for the more than 1,000 judges who will meet with the students on a one-on-one basis.
Kinard said students chose their own projects and bought their own supplies. Students worked on the projects for months; some spent spring break at the school refining every aspect of their work.
