Young scientists out to save the bay, lives

Projects carry two to international contest

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

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Kelles Gordge and Shefali Shah, students at Great Mills High School, successfully used local resources to create science fair projects that were showcased last week at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

Both of the students' projects were intimately connected with their surrounding community. Shah, 17, focused on a way to improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay using a lab in neighboring Calvert County while Gordge, 16, used her connections at the Leonardtown Volunteer Rescue Squad to create a potentially life-saving piece of medical equipment.

Shah took fourth place in her category at the Intel fair and Gordge picked up four special awards for her project.

But for the two high school students, the trip to Los Angeles last week the best part was meeting students from around the world with interests similar to their own. Both are longtime participants in science fairs and have each stockpiled awards over the past several years, but this was their first trip to the international fair.

The trip, which was sponsored and paid for by the local science and engineering fair board, was a dream for both of them, they said, and going together helped solidify their friendship and build their interest in a career in science or engineering.

"Meeting all the people from all over the world was amazing," Shah said. "We were able to talk to them about science."

The hundreds of projects were all top-notch, the girls said. The judging occurred on one day of the week-long fair. Other days were spent browsing displays, checking out their competition and hanging out with other participants, they said.

One evening Universal Studios theme park was open for a special invitation-only event for the science fair students.

"Everyone there had a passion for science," Shah said.

One of the flashier projects was a pair of drum trousers made by a student from Great Britain. The boy had basically converted the pants into an electronic drum kit.

"That was the coolest project," Gordge said.

Gordge's project, titled "Take a Deep Breath," aims to address an issue she learned about in part from talking to volunteer rescue squad members, including her father, Dennis Gordge.

"They only use stethoscopes" periodically to monitor patients' lungs in hospitals, she said. "This could really help patients."

She invented a device that continuously monitors and tracks "crackles," or sounds made from fluid in a patient's lung, that may be associated with congestive heart failure. She also wrote a computer program that visualizes these sounds to allow for easier monitoring.

"I wanted to solve a real-world problem," Gordge said.

She said some of the rescue squad volunteers were interested in the device.

Her project won four awards at the Intel fair: first place from the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE); the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance Award; the United States Army Award; and second place from the Acoustical Society of America.

Shah's project, "To Clay or Not to Clay?" looked at the management of algal growth through clay and chitosan flocculation.

She investigated the potential of using clay from a local quarry to essentially spray onto algae blooms in hopes of sinking the lethal growths in the Chesapeake Bay. The blooms block sunlight from reaching underwater grasses and use up oxygen that other sealife needs.

Her project won one of the fourth-place awards for environmental management.

"She was the perfect researcher," said Stella Sellner, the education coordinator at Morgan State University Estuarine Research Center, where Shah did much of her work on the project.

Sellner said Shah quickly recovered and adjusted when she got something wrong and kept working until she found a solution. "It was really amazing to see in someone that young the ability," Sellner said.

Shah is graduating this year from Great Mills and is planning to go to the University of Maryland, College Park where she is enrolled in the Gemstone honors program, which is known for its extensive research opportunities, she said.

Shah is planning to do more work with the algae bloom project and hopes it will have a real-world application to help the Chesapeake Bay.

Gordge, a junior at Great Mills, is looking forward to refining her project and having a good showing at next year's science fairs.

"I'd like to continue it. It could ultimately really help people," Gordge said of her lung-monitoring project.