Thomas Worthington High School students tested the "five second rule" for dropped food, shot baseballs at face shields, made newspaper bricks and developed a variety of science projects and experiments for State Science Day, coming away with top ratings and scholarship awards.

State Science Day was held May 10 at Ohio State University. Science teacher Brian Geniusz said there were 1,106 students in attendance, representing 281 schools across the state.

"Beyond the wonderful learning experience students get by conducting research of their own design, students that compete at State Science Day are able to see outstanding projects from across the state and they realize their own projects are just as deserving to be there," he said. "This recognition can really inspire students to believe science is something they can do and be very successful with today and in the future."

Twenty Thomas Worthington students participated in the contest, with 12 projects.

They included: sophomores Jonathan Katz, Eric Petry, Molly Bachmann, Melissa Girgis, Mackenzie Johnson, Kayleigh Edgecombe, Korey Humeny, Samantha Wood, Shaadee Samimy, Walid Choueiki, Rachel Webb, Meghen Atterbury, Kathryn Kinsel, Matthew Tischer, Lana Dennison and Kathleen Dotts and freshmen Eric Lawell, Niteesha Kulshretha, Kayla Burris and Isabella Bogin.

Girgis and Johnson picked up a Superior rating with "Testing the five second rule: Take it or leave it?"

Science teacher Jodi Bacon said the students placed small pieces of bologna on the floor at the high school for varying amounts of time, then inoculated a Petri dish with the food and incubated it.

"They counted the number of colonies of bacteria that grew," Bacon said. "They also distributed a questionnaire to about 100 students to ask if they knew of the five second rule and whether they tended to heed it or ignore it."

The project won a Food Science Award which came with a $3,000 scholarship, renewable for up to four years, to attend Ohio State University with food science as a major.

It also won an Ohio Wesleyan University State Science Day scholarship, worth $10,000, renewable for three additional years.

Katz and Petry's project, "Comparison of game used football helmet face shields (Oakley and Nike) for optical quality and impact" yielded a Superior rating and an Outstanding Public Health Achievement award, which came with a $1,500 savings bond for each student. They were also awarded the $10,000 Ohio Wesleyan scholarships.

"The students used a machine that shoots baseballs at high speed onto a used football face shield, which they obtained through a contact at OSU, to simulate high impact conditions that might occur on the field," Bacon said. "They found used shields were indeed more likely to crack and concluded face shields might need to be replaced at intervals during the season for optimal eye safety."

Bachmann's "Post harvest storage effect on the Vitamin C content of organically and conventionally grown oranges over time" received a Superior rating, a $300 cash award from Roxane Laboratories, the Food Science Award, with $3,000 OSU scholarship and the $10,000 Ohio Wesleyan University scholarship.

Humeny, Edgecombe and Ward made concrete bricks with varying amounts of shredded newspaper added as filler, Bacon said. "The effect of newspaper on concrete bricks" won a Superior, the Chemistry Award, the Interdisciplinary Research Award with $100 cash, and the Ohio Wesleyan scholarship.

"The students were looking to see which ratio of components would yield the strongest brick," Bacon said. "They were looking at the possibility of alleviating environmental problems by re-using newspaper as a construction material and also hoping to find cheaper ways to make concrete."

Samimy won a Superior, the Ohio Wesleyan Scholarship award and a Behavioral Science Award, with $75, for "The effects of socio-cultural factors on listeners' perception of the accentedness of non-native speakers."

Choueiki's project, "Which type of athlete has the healthiest heart?" also won a Superior rating.

Webb's "The effects of freezing on the vitamin C content of strawberries" earned an Excellent rating and the $3,000 OSU Food Science scholarship.

Other projects judged as Excellent were Atterbury and Kensil's "Lead in drinking water," Tischer's "RAM size and computer performance," Bogin, Burris and Kulshrestha's "Relaxing Music," Dennison and Dotts with "The effects of backpack weight on Thomas Worthington High School students and Lawell's "Lung capacity: Who has more -- football players, non-athletes or band members?"

"The school won a huge trophy because every single project we sent to the district contest went on to compete at the state level," Bacon said. "The number of projects we send to district is limited by the number of volunteer judges we can provide. We would welcome more volunteer judges from the community and people willing to serve as mentors for our students' projects."

"This recognition can really inspire students to believe science is something they can do and be very successful with today and in the future."

--Brian Geniusz