Harrison High School Science Students Excel at WESF

Congratulations to Harrison High School seniors Jannat Iftikhar and Bea Almeida for their outstanding showing at the recent Westchester Engineering and Science Fair (WESF). The two, participants in Harrison High School’s Science Research program, will be on hand along with sophomores and juniors for the annual Science Symposium on April 27th at Harrison High School to discuss their work.

Jannat Iftikhar’s project, mentored by Heath Kaplan , entitled “A Study of the Role that the International Baccalaureate Program has on Quantity of Sleep for Students” earned her the Fisher Scientific Award for “Outstanding Projects in Behavioral Sciences.”

According to Jannat in her discussion of the project, “The aim of this experiment was to test if taking International Baccalaureate classes impacts a student’s sleep quantity. The hypothesis was if a 12th grade student is in the International Baccalaureate Program, then they will sleep for fewer amounts of hours than students not in the program. A questionnaire was given to 12th grade students taking Law and Government classes (non-IB Diploma candidates) and 12th grade students taking Theory of Knowledge (IB Diploma candidates). The average sleep length for non-IB students was 6.39 hours and the average sleep length for IB students was 6.35 hours. The hypothesis was rejected because the chi squared value is 6.436 which is less than the critical value, 7.815.”

“Since the C.V. is more than the chi square value, the null hypothesis is accepted. This demonstrates that students who are IB Diploma candidates do not sleep for fewer amounts of hours than students not in the program. A student’s enrollment in the IB Program has no significant effect on the hours of sleep they receive.”

Bea Almeida’s project, mentored by Dr. Christopher Tyler, was “The Efficiency of Different Scaffolding Approaches in Tissue Cell Engineering.”

“The purpose of this meta-analysis was to determine which scaffold grew the most effective tissues,” said Almeida in the discussion of her project. “Data was collected from various reputable sources and studies were used to come to a consensus on which scaffold was the most promising in growing tissues that would eventually be the basis for an organ. Studies were chosen based on scaffold type and porosity type. The data collected shows that those that emulate the extracellular matrix (ECM), where tissue is maintained and developed inside the human body, were the most effective in producing tissue.”

“Further, scaffolds built on spiraled structures with porosity levels between 79-87% were the most effective in emulating the ECM, tricking tissue into behaving and growing as if it were in the human body. Thus, it was determined that the pre-made porous scaffold was the best at growing tissue and preventing early degeneration.”