ASMSA students share research at science fair, senior symposium
Students at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts spent Thursday afternoon presenting extensive research and findings that went into numerous science, humanities and arts projects.
The 2018 West Central Regional Science Fair and Senior Research Symposium held a public viewing of a wide range of students’ work.
In the Senior Research Symposium, students presented humanities projects in one of four categories — history, social science, arts and literature, and fine arts.
“Competing in the research symposium, we have around 20 students. In the fine arts component there’s probably another 23 competing,” said Dan Kostopulos, Humanities Department chair.
“The judging from a humanities point of view, for the research symposium we are looking for quality of research and quality of writing, and the ability to be fluent and articulate in your topic. Those three things are probably the most critical.”
Senior Sabah IsMail, of Fort Smith, said most seniors have
been working on their projects for a full year.
“From February last year to February this year we have worked on one project on a subject we get to choose, and today we are finally presenting them,” she said. “Through this process we’ve done a paper, we’ve done presentations and so much research and it’s really nice that we finally get to see the work we’ve done together.”
Senior Branson Smith, of Spring Hill, took an interest in IQ testing for his project, studying changes in methods and intelligence over the last century.
“My project was in the social sciences category and what I did was I analyzed the history of IQ testing in the past century,” he said. “From that I started looking at what’s influencing it the most with the idea that the environment would have a drastic effect on how you develop and how your IQ would measure up.
“I looked at biological factors such as family and the home, and also I started looking at the quality of education a person can get comparing financial situation and the types of schools people go to. One thing I thought that was particularly of note was that twins raised together in a loving atmosphere did better than twins raised apart in a loving atmosphere. So that family closeness seems to nurture them and their intellect.”
Logan Bailey, a senior from Clarksville, used his interest in filmmaking for his research project.
“Essentially speaking, what I wanted to do was look at pop culture during the Cold War,” Bailey said. “Since I want to be a filmmaker, I decided what better way to do that than looking at films of the time period and trying to get into the directors’ heads.”
Several students in the fine arts category took a different approach creating portfolios based on a year’s worth of work.
“A few years ago we started something called portfolio capstone projects, which started with my students and what we call studio portfolio which is the visual arts,” said Brad Wreyford, an art teacher at ASMSA. “That’s painting, drawing, sculpture, design, fabrication. And last year we expanded and added creative writing, music, film. This year we even expanded even more — we have a girl making her own kimchi.”
Wreyford said these portfolios are reflective of the school’s desire to really reflect its charter and grow in the arts.
“This would be the third year that we’ve had portfolio projects and it’s grown every year,” he said.
Kostopulos said with the fine arts component, there is more variety in the projects.
“Some kids have written their own music or made music videos, some have made documentaries. Some students have done a whole year’s worth of paintings. So for them, I think, the criteria is more about individual effort, and breadth and depth, as well as skill,” he said.
The regional science fair boasted 87 presentations by around 100 juniors and seniors, according to Brian Monson, Science Department chair.
“There’s 15 different categories and students who place first, second or third in their categories will advance to the state science fair,” he said. “The students who place overall, the top three will go directly to the International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh in May.”
Monson, who has been with the school for 18 years, said the level of work “gets a little bit better every year.”
“Last year from this fair, eight students qualified to go to the International Science and Engineering Fair, and five of those students brought home prizes,” he said. “It’s probably one of the most competitive fairs in the nation.
“This is the second year in a row that the people from the international fair have given us a special award to give out for a project that tries to solve a local problem. They only give out about 25 of those worldwide. It’s the Community Innovation Award.”
Students like juniors Rachel Stall, of Clarksville, and Halo Skinner, of Sherwood, used their projects to study the local environment, particularly water quality in the area.
Stall studied the water quality of Gulpha Creek, comparing a study done in 1978 with her findings today.
“I was very interested in seeing how the water quality may have changed over time as Hot Springs National Park is uniquely urban in its environment,” she said. “I measured a few different parameters.”
Similarly, Skinner studied the water quality of Bull Bayou; however, instead of taking into consideration the chemical factors, she looked at the biological factors.
“I specifically chose Bull Bayou as my unique sampling site because of its location to the Garland County Landfill,” she said. “I wanted to do a comparison study to previous water quality studies done in the area to determine whether or not the Garland County Landfill is having a negative effect on the water quality of Bull Bayou.”
In the end, Skinner said her hypothesis was conflicting.
“My testing site downstream of the landfill definitely had the lowest water quality of any of my sites; however, the site at the landfill had my highest water quality which leads me to believe that while there is definitely pollution I do not believe that the landfill is the source of pollution,” she said.
Corey Alderdice, director of ASMSA, said the school is “excited about the quality of our students’ capstone projects.”
“This year, our new Applied Research Methods seminars means we have more juniors participating in the event,” he said. “We’ve also seen a tremendous growth in the number of art portfolio projects as we continue to invest in that component of our institutional mission.”
Overall winners in the regional science fair include John Ostermueller, first place; Sanidhya Tripathi, second place; Sabrina Jones, third place; and Halo Skinner, fourth place. Ostermueller, Tripathi and Jones will travel to Pittsburgh to compete in the International Science and Engineering Fair in May.