Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 9, 1995 TAG: 9504100071
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
Kristi Alger of Patrick Henry High School and Cave Spring High's Meenoo Jain were the grand award winners, beating out 84 other projects from nine school systems.
The two will take their projects to Ontario, Canada, in May to compete in the International Science Fair.
David Partington, director of secondary education for Roanoke city schools, said he was pleased to see such a strong showing by female students this year.
"You hear people say that girls are shying away from math and science - well, that's baloney," he said. "They're blowing everybody out of the water."
Alger, whose project found a way to remove crude oil from particles using microwave radiation, was also a winner of the Westinghouse Science Talent Award. Alger is one of only 300 students in the country to be chosen for this award.
Jain's project, which focused on the effect of Vitamin C on normal cells exposed to ultraviolet rays, was part of a two-year study.
Katherine Airey and Grace Lasker were chosen as alternate grand award winners.
Airey, a senior at Northside High School, entered a project titled "Mapping and analysis of fracture patterns to trace patterns of ground water contaminants."
Lasker, a junior at Cave Spring, won with her project, "Plants with anti-cancer activity."
by CNB