{"id":35121,"date":"2024-03-25T14:39:05","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T18:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=35121"},"modified":"2024-03-25T14:39:06","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T18:39:06","slug":"county-science-research-competition-winners-celebrated-at-awards-ceremony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=35121","title":{"rendered":"County Science Research Competition winners celebrated at awards ceremony"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_19344\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-19344\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-19344\" src=\"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/IMG_7511.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"233\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-19344\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The students pictured won Best of Division for C Division (grade 10) in the Dr. Lucy Balian Rorke-Adams Fair. From left to right: Aman Yelampalli of Avon Grove Charter School, Rithik Kamtam of Downingtown STEM Academy, and Sruthi Desikan of Downingtown STEM Academy.<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"elementToProof\">On Tuesday, March 19, students in grades 6-12 from across Chester County gathered at the Technical College High School (TCHS) Brandywine Campus for the Dr. Lucy Balian Rorke-Adams Science Fair awards ceremony.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, the Chester County Intermediate Unit (CCIU) coordinated the 35<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0annual Chester County Science Research Competition (CCSRC), hosted at the West Chester University Student Recreation Center. The two-day event, which included the Dr. Jonas Salk Fair for students in grades 4-5 and the Dr. Lucy Balian Rorke-Adams Fair for students in grades 6-12, gave participants the opportunity to showcase\u00a0their passion for science. Of the 183 projects entered into\u00a0the Rorke-Adams Fair of the CCSRC, 123 met the judges\u2019 criteria of a winning project and were announced at the awards ceremony.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>During the Rorke-Adams awards ceremony, students eagerly waited to see how they placed\u00a0in the fair. Each category winner received a ribbon based on their project category and ranking. In addition to category winners, the CCIU also distributed special awards to 16 student winners, totaling nearly $800 in value.<\/p>\n<p class=\"elementToProof\">High school students who placed first, second, or third in their category and middle school students who placed first or second will advance to the Delaware Valley\u00a0Science\u00a0Fairs (DVSF) held during the first week of April. The DVSF is split into six divisions: 12<sup>th<\/sup> grade, 11<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0grade, 10<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0grade, 9<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0grade, high school team projects, and 6-8<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0grade.<\/p>\n<p>The top winners who will represent Chester County in the DVSF are as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>12<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0grade: Tennyson Nelson (Environmental Science), Avon Grove Charter School &#8211; Upper School<\/li>\n<li>11<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0grade: Jerry Huynh (Microbiology), Westtown School<\/li>\n<li>10<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0grade: Sruthi Desikan (Physics), Downingtown STEM Academy<\/li>\n<li>9<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0grade: Shipra Kapoor (Medicine &amp; Health), Unionville High School<\/li>\n<li>High school team project: Neha Chigurupati &amp; Akshaya Venkatesh (Teams), Downingtown STEM Academy<\/li>\n<li>6-8<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0grade: Kush Aggarwal (Physics), Charles F. Patton Middle School<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Rithik Kamtam of Downingtown STEM Academy is one of 81 students who will compete at the DVSF. He won first place in the medicine and health category for his project, <i>To Investigate the Impact of Insulin Resistance on Drosophila Melanogaster as Measured by Negative Geotaxis<\/i>, and\u00a0achieved second place for Best of Division in grade 10.<\/p>\n<p>When asked to explain his project, Kamtam opened with how he became interested in insulin resistance. He said, \u201cAs part of the Design to Lead program by Sewa USA, my friends and I created a database to connect people who need insulin with subsidized insulin programs in the Philadelphia area. That really kickstarted my interest in wanting to learn about insulin and diabetes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kamtam explained, \u201cI fed Drosophila melanogaster, which is the scientific name for fruit flies, an insulin resistant diet. Using the data I collected, I performed negative geotaxis on the flies \u2013 which is a form of physical measurement. I recorded their times and was able to calculate the average time of the flies with the insulin resistant diet compared to the flies who were not on that diet. I came up with the percent difference in physical performance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kamtam\u2019s research extends beyond the work he did for the CCSRC. He emphasized that he is trying to contact local labs to repeat the experiment and scale the data to be applicable to humans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"elementToProof\">\u201cWe always have judges emphasize how impressed they are with the students and projects at the CCSRC, but this year was over the top,\u201d said Kathy Gurnee, special events coordinator for the CCIU who has organized the CCSRC for the last four years. \u201cJudge after judge reported how much better they feel about our future with these bright, talented,\u00a0and hard-working students leading the way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"elementToProof\">When asked what advice he would give to future CCSRC participants, Kamtam answered, \u201cTake your time, understand what you want, and be passionate about it. That passion really drives you to put more effort into your project and helps to make sure that you are doing the best you possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To see a full list of CCSRC winners, please visit <a id=\"OWAf0065ea1-f0f6-32a1-4467-9b44416f3563\" class=\"OWAAutoLink\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cciu.org\/science-fair\" data-loopstyle=\"linkonly\">www.cciu.org\/science-fair<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Tuesday, March 19, students in grades 6-12 from across Chester County gathered at the Technical College High School (TCHS) Brandywine Campus for the Dr. Lucy Balian Rorke-Adams Science Fair awards ceremony. Last week, the Chester County Intermediate Unit (CCIU) coordinated the 35th\u00a0annual Chester County Science Research Competition (CCSRC), hosted at the West Chester University [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10,12427,1262,8077,672],"class_list":["post-35121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-chester-county-intermediate-unit","tag-dr-lucy-balian-rorke-adams-science-fair-awards","tag-schools-2","tag-science","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35122,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35121\/revisions\/35122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}