Two Cardinal Ritter students participated in The American Junior Academy of Science (AJAS) and American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual convention held February 16-20 in Washington, D.C.
Patrick Haynie and Jonathan Mosley presented their research projects at the event, which was attended by 150 students from across the country. Both students were mentored by local doctors to help them with their ongoing projects.
Haynie’s mentors were Dr. C. Easter and Dr. Paul Cliften of the Washington University Genome Sequencing Center. His research project is entitled “SuperViruses: A Study to Analyze Their Genome Sequences Using the BLAST Program.”
“The term super-viruses is a classification for a list of viruses that infect multiple species other than just humans,” Haynie said, describing his research. “They are difficult to contain and eradicate, and they have high mutation rates.”
“I used the BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) program at the Genome Sequencing Center to map their genomic sequences and then compare those sequences to each one of the viruses on the list that I chose,” he said. The list viruses Haynie chose included the Ebola virus and avian influenza.
Mosley’s project, “A Study of the Location of Grocery Stores in Low-Income Communities Using the Geographic Information System,” was sponsored by the Monsanto Fund, and Dr. Edward Haynie was his mentor. According to Mosley, the project is a behavioral study of the location of grocery stores in lower- and higher-income neighborhoods and the direct effect on the surrounding community.
“One of my major findings is that the residents in lower-income neighborhoods have much higher obesity rates and more of a risk to things along the lines of diabetes and hypertension than those who live near higher-income grocery stores,” Mosley said.
“Those residents living in those lower-income neighborhoods don’t have access to healthy and nutritious foods,” he said explaining the findings of his ongoing research project.
“Either there aren’t many grocery stores in that area of high-quality, or those grocery stores there don’t carry the products that they need.” Mosley said this forces residents of lower-income neighborhoods to shop for food at convenience stores rather than supermarkets which offer broader and healthier food options.
In addition to presenting the findings of their research in a speech and formal presentation, the teens also had the opportunity to attend lectures, symposia, special tours of governmental and commercial research facilities, visit historical and cultural sites, and meet many of the nation’s leading scientists.
“I went to naval research labs in Washington, D.C., where they’re working on laser technology,” Patrick Haynie said of the extra events they participated in during the 5-day convention. He also said that a career in science and research is an option he is considering as a result of his involvement.
“The students were top students that attended the conference with us,” Haynie said of the other participants in the convention.
“I was really surprised how much young people can make a difference when you put your mind to it,” Mosley said describing the variety of research projects presented by students.
Locally, both Haynie and Mosley participate in the Incubator Scientists Program (ISP)/Computer Village, which is headed by Executive Director Dr. Edward Haynie.
“I’ve been involved with getting students engaged in science and research for a number of years,” Dr. Haynie said.
ISP is a not-for-profit organization that partners with schools and scientific organizations to mentor, nurture, promote, motivate and engage underrepresented middle and high school students in science and encourage them to pursue careers in science, mathematics, engineering and technology.
“It teaches organization skills,” Dr. Haynie said of studying science. “It teaches critical thinking, and I think that we need more African Americans in the science area because we don’t have that many as role models.”
The ISP was initiated in the St. Louis Public School System in 1990 at Beaumont High School and later expanded to other public schools.
Dr. Haynie said, “The ultimate goal of research science projects for high school students is to stimulate scientific thinking, which in turn requires immediate paradigm changes in the delivery of science instruction in the science classes, k-through 12th grades.”
Next, Haynie and Mosley will present their projects at the Missouri Academy of Science Symposium at Maryville. Then in April they will participate in the Honors Division of the Greater St. Louis Science Fair.
For more information about ISP visit HYPERLINK “http://www.onmy.com/haynie/haynie/”www.onmy.com/haynie/haynie/ or email Dr. Haynie at HYPERLINK “mailto:ehaynie@charter.net”ehaynie@charter.net.
