[Poster Winner]

Northeast Ohio Science and Engineering Fair

1998 Statistical Special Award Winners




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 At the 1998 NEOSEF, five projects were winners of special awards given by the Cleveland Chapter of the American Statistical Association. These projects were selected by our panel of judges from the 419 projects entered in the NEOSEF.

“Get the Lead Out” by Missy Blakely, a junior at Beaumont School in Cleveland Heights. Missy’s project examined the effect of lead on brain neurons in rats. The hypothesis was that lead inhibits neuronal differentiation causing impeded calcitronin gene-related peptide (CGRP). Brain neurons were exposed to lead concentrations of 25um and 50um and showed lower survival rates of CGRP percentiles compared with controls. Survival curves with standard deviations were shown. Missy worked on the project with Alison Hall, an Associate Professor at CWRU School of Medicine. Missy received a $25 cash award, the book "Statistics: A guide to the Unknown" by Tanur et al, and a Certificate of Merit. Her teacher, Ms. Kensig, received the book "Exploring Data" by Landwehr and Watkins. Missy Blakely was also the NEOSEF grand prize winner in the biological science division and competed in the International Science and Engineering Fair in Fort Worth, Texas.

“Does Balloon Color Affect Floating Time” by Kirsten Hansen an eighth grader at St. Dominic's School in Shaker Heights. Kirsten’s project compared four colors of balloons using five balloons of each color. Mean floating times were compared using a one-way analysis of variance. Significant differences were found with the colored balloons staying aloft longer than the white bal-loons. She received a $25 cash award, the Tanur book and a Certificate of Merit. Her teacher, Mrs. Turkell, was given the Explor-ing Data book.

“Which Type of Wood is Stronger” by Amanda Peck a tenth grader from Lakewood High School. Amanda compared the breaking weight and flexibility of four types of wood: oak, poplar, pine and cedar using four samples of each. She first normalized the data to account for the different sizes of the samples and then compared the results by showing a boxplot for each type of wood. Oak and poplar had the best results. She received a $25 cash award, the Tanur book and a Certifi-cate of Merit. Her teacher, Mrs. Lickly, received the Exploring Data book.

A Certificate of Award and the Tanur book were also given to two other students:

“Can the Addition of a Small Percentage of Rubber Change the Physical Characteristics of Asphalt” by Jennifer Nix, an eighth grader from Messiah Lutheran. Her experimental approach had good design features and used the data results to make reasonable comparisons. Grant Meachem, a seventh grade student at Shaker Middle School studied

“Creating Transparent Skin and Subcutaneous Tissue.” His project used an evolutionary design where the next composition of Kraton polymers to test was determined from the results observed in the previous mixtures. The goal was to make a substance that could be used for modeling and practice of doing medi-cal syringe injections in humans.

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1999 NEOSEF Winners
1997 NEOSEF Winners