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The students pictured won the best category in the Dr. Lucy Balian Rorke-Adams Fair in the C division (grade 10). Left to right: Aman Yelampalli from Avon Grove Charter School, Rithik Kamtam from Downingtown STEM Academy, and Sruthi Desikan from Downingtown STEM Academy. (Photo provided by CICU)
DOWNINGTOWN — On Tuesday, March 19, 2024, students in grades 6-12 from across Chester County descended upon Technical College High School (TCHS) for Dr. Lucy Varian’s Rourke Adams Science Fair Awards Ceremony. We gathered on the Brandywine campus.
Last week, Chester County Intermediate Unit (CCIU) coordinated the 35th annual Chester County Scientific Research Competition (CCSRC) held at the West Chester University Student Recreation Center. The two-day event, which includes the Dr. Jonas Salk Fair for 4th-5th graders and the Dr. Lucy Varian Rourke Adams Fair for 6th-12th graders, gives attendees an opportunity to showcase their passion for science. gave. Of the 183 projects entered at CCSRC’s Rourke Adams Fair, 123 met the judges’ winning project criteria and were announced at the awards ceremony.
At the Rourke Adams awards ceremony, students were looking forward to seeing how they performed in the competition. Winners in each category received ribbons based on their project category and ranking. In addition to the winners in each category, CCIU awarded special awards totaling nearly $800 to her 16 student winners.
High school students who place first, second or third in each category and middle school students who place first or second in each category will advance to the Delaware Valley Science Fair (DVSF), held the first week of April . DVSF is divided into six divisions: 12th grade, 11th grade, 10th grade, 9th grade, high school team project, and her for grades 6-8.
The top winners representing Chester County in the DVSF are:
• Grade 12: Tennyson Nelson (Environmental Science), Avon Grove Charter School – Upper School.
• Grade 11: Jerry Finn (Microbiology), Westtown School.
• Grade 10: Sruthi Desikan (Physics), Downingtown STEM Academy.
• Grade 9: Shipra Kapur (Medicine and Health), Unionville High School.
• High School Team Project: Neha Chigurupati & Akshaya Venkatesh (Teams), Downingtown STEM Academy
• Grades 6-8: Kush Aggarwal (Physics), Charles F. Patton Middle School.
• Rithik Kamtam from Downingtown STEM Academy is one of 81 students competing in the DVSF. He won 1st place in the Medicine and Health category and 2nd place in the 10th grade category for his project “Investigating the effects of insulin resistance on Drosophila melanogaster as measured by negative chemotaxis.” Did.
When asked to explain his project, Kamtum began by telling how he became interested in insulin resistance. He said: “As part of the Design to Lead program with Sewa USA, a friend and I created a database that connects people who need insulin to subsidized insulin programs in the Philadelphia area. My interest in learning really started.”
“We fed Drosophila melanogaster, the scientific name for the fruit fly, an insulin-resistant diet,” Kamtam said. “We used the data we collected to perform negative geotaxis on the flies, which is a type of physical measurement. I recorded that time and was able to calculate the average time for flies fed the insulin resistant diet compared to flies not fed that diet. I came up with a percent difference in physical performance. Ta.”
Mr. Kamtam’s research extends beyond the research he conducted at CCSRC. He stressed that he is reaching out to local labs to repeat the experiment and scale up the data so it can be applied to humans.
“We always have our judges emphasize how impressed they are with CCSRC students and projects, and this year was by far the best,” said CCIU Special Events Coordinator, who has hosted CCSRC for the past four years. said Kathy Gurney. “Judges shared one after another how much better they felt our future would be with these bright, talented, and hard-working students leading the way.”
When asked what advice he would give to future CCSRC participants, Kamtum replied: That passion drives you to put more effort into your projects and helps you make them the best they can be. ”
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