By Andrew Coen
For Reilly's hours of research, she was one of 10 Five Towners named semifinalists in the annual Intel Science Talent Search competition, including six at Lawrence High School, three at Hewlett High and one at Rambam Mesivta High School for Boys in Lawrence.
The Intel Foundation rewards each student with a $1,000 scholarship, and a matching amount goes to the student's school. The 300 semifinalists will be narrowed to 40 finalists on Jan. 25, and the finalists will compete for prize money totaling more than $500,000 in March.
"I would watch ["Barney"] with [my cousin] and see what she would learn from it," said Reilly of how she got the idea for her project, titled "The Effectiveness of Education Television Programming as a Teaching Tool."
Reilly said she was also motivated to do the project after learning that while there have been many studies on other children's shows like "Sesame Street" and "Mr. Rogers," only one researcher had explored the impact of "Barney" on children and what they learn. Reilly, a Cedarhurst resident, gave surveys to three different groups of pre-school students at the Number Four School in Inwood, both before and after they viewed two episodes of the show, as part of her research.
Other 5T's Intel semifinalists' projects
Nicole Brenner, 17 - Lawrence High School
The goal of Brenner's project, titled "Preparation and Characterization of a Superparamagnetic Polymer Nanocomposite for Biomedical Applications," was to develop a bio-magnetic plastic. She spent hours in the lab of SUNY-Stony Brook's Garcia Research Center with her mentor, Rebecca Isseroff. Brenner has even filed for a patent disclosure and submitted an abstract of her research to the American Physical Society.
Thomas Candreva, 17 - LHS
Candreva spent two summers doing research at the University of Missouri for his project, called, "Determining an Optimal Method for Cryopreserving Boar Spermatozoa." Candreva froze pig sperm in an attempt to find ways for it to survive. He said he ended up at Missouri after reading articles by experts on the subject, and got in touch with a professor at the university who authored one of the texts.
Simcha Holzer, 17 - Rambam Mesivta
High School for Boys
Holzer attempted to improve the production of circuit boards and lenses in his project "Modifying Surfaces of Polycarbonate To Achieve Enhanced Properties." He studied at the Garcia Center at Stony Brook, and was mentored by Mordechai Joseph Bronner, a Rambam Mesivta graduate who was a 2002 Intel finalist.
"I had very little life outside of science, so to be officially recognized for it is very nice," said Holzer of his project.
Mandy Kain, 17 - Hewlett High School
Kain researched whether girls, when compared with boys, tend to blame themselves more when things go negatively and credit others more when life is positive, and whether there was any correlation to a difference in cheating between the sexes. In her project, entitled, "The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: The Line Between Attribution Theory and Cheating Among High School Students," Kain said that in a survey of 300 Hewlett students, she discovered that there was no significant reason why either boys or girls decide to cheat.
Jean Qijian Luo, 17 - Hewlett High School
Luo studied altruism and generosity, to see if people were being altruistic for their own needs or for others in a project titled, "Who is Altruistic? An Examination of the Determinants of Altruism Among Adolescents." She tested students ages 13 to 18, and found that teenagers become more altruistic as they aged -- with the exception of 11th-graders, because of the academic pressures that come with that year of school.
Audrey Menco, 17 - Lawrence High School
Menco's project was titled "Reflecting on a Problem: Aspects of Male Body Image Among Adolescents." She decided to study how boys perceive their bodies compared with girls, since nearly every article she read on the subject dealt with girls and women. Menco conducted a survey of boys and girls to determine how both sexes viewed their bodies, and she found the results to be closer than expected. "Even though females are the most concerned [about their body image], males are not far behind," she said.
Sarah Natow, 18 - Hewlett High School
Natow's project, called "Reading White and Blue: The Prevalence of Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome," examined whether the color of the paper on which a test is printed makes a difference in how students perform. Natow's research, which surveyed Hewlett students, discovered that students who have an average of 85 or below perform better on blue paper than white. "It has to do with how their brain processes visually," Natow said of her findings.
Melissa Sussman, 17 - Lawrence High School
Sussman studied ways of fighting breast cancer through her project, called "A New Target to Fight Breast Cancer: hHb1-deltaN." Sussman, who was newly motivated to complete the project after the recent death of her grandmother from the disease, studied breast cancer cells at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, Fla., over two summers.
Ilana Yurkiewicz, 17 - Lawrence High School
Yurkiewicz researched lung cancer for her project, titled "The Role of DNA Methylation in Epigenetic Inactivation of Beta ig-h3 Gene in Lung Tumors," spending two summers at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan. "The basic idea for my project was to find early detection of lung cancer," said Yurkiewicz, whose older sister, Shara, was named an Intel semifinalist last year.
Yurkiewicz, who was accepted early decision to Yale, said she hopes to continue her research on lung cancer when she starts school in the fall.
Lawrence High School sweeps in science
Lawrence managed a clean sweep in the science category, with all four entrants, Yurkiewicz, Sussman, Candreva and Brenner, receiving semifinalist accolades after being advised by Dr. Jennifer Lagnado and Rebecca Isseroff. "These youngsters have been working on these projects for many years," said Lagnado.
The announcement of Lawrence's six Intel science semifinalists made an already special day even more so for Stephen Sullivan, the school's social science advisor, whose daughter, Christine, a student at MacArthur High School in Levittown, was also named a semifinalist. "I don't know when these kids sleep," joked Sullivan about how hard they worked on their projects. "It is a remarkably accomplished group of kids."
Isseroff had a hand in both the Lawrence High and Rambam Mesivta winners, since she teaches science and mentors at both schools. "You're not going to find a more dedicated teacher than that," said Rabbi Zev Meir Friedman, who heads Rambam Mesivta. "She just loves science."
The Hewlett Intel semifinalists utilized local university libraries and consulted with outside experts on their research topics, which were overseen by the school's social science advisor, Pat Nardi. "This was a very rewarding experience for the students and for me," said Nardi. "It's a labor of love."
Comments about this story? ACoen@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 210.
