BW’S Abbie Myers invited to AJAS Convention

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School eighth grade stu­dent Abbie Myers has been involved in Big Walnut’s annual sci­ence fair since she was in fifth grade. As a sixth grader Myers com­pleted a sci­ence fair project, Aquatic Oil Spill Clean-Up, that is still gar­ner­ing awards for Myers, includ­ing a Feb­ru­ary 13 to 17 trip to Boston where she will be inducted as a Life­time Fel­low in the Amer­i­can Junior Acad­emy of Sci­ences dur­ing the 2013 AJAS Annual Convention.

The AJAS is America’s only honor research soci­ety for high school sci­en­tists. Each state’s Acad­emy of Sci­ence selects pre­mier mid­dle and high school researchers from their state to be life­time fel­lows in AJAS. Each year, the AJAS hosts a con­fer­ence to honor these stu­dents and to induct them as fel­lows into AJAS. The con­fer­ence is always held in con­junc­tion with the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion for the Advance­ment of Science’s (AAAS) Conference.

Becom­ing an AJAS Life­time Fel­low is not an honor casu­ally given out. This year only five stu­dents from Ohio have been invited to the AJAS con­ven­tion as inductees. To get there Myers’ 2011 sci­ence fair project had to get Supe­rior rat­ings at Big Wal­nut and at Cen­tral Dis­trict Sci­ence Day at Colum­bus State Com­mu­nity Col­lege, where she also earned a First Place Award spon­sored by the Franklin County Chap­ter of the Ohio Soci­ety of Pro­fes­sional Engineers.

At State Sci­ence Day at The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity in May of 2011 Myers not only earned a Supe­rior rat­ing, she took home three spon­sored awards: a First Place Ralph J. Bern­hagen Award spon­sored by the Ohio Geo­log­i­cal Soci­ety that earned a cer­tifi­cate, a cash award, plus a one year OGS stu­dent mem­ber­ship; a First Place plaque and cash award from the Soci­ety of Petro­leum Engi­neers, Ohio Sec­tion; and an Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Edu­ca­tion Pro­gram (OOGEEP) Award that also came with a cer­tifi­cate and cash.

Dur­ing April of 2012 Myers was invited to present her project at the 121st Annual Meet­ing of the Ohio Acad­emy of Sci­ences (OAS) at Ash­land Uni­ver­sity, pri­mar­ily a pro­fes­sional and col­le­giate meet­ing. At the OAS Annual Meet­ing Myers was selected as one of five pre-college stu­dents to rep­re­sent the State of Ohio and The Ohio Acad­emy of Sci­ence at the AJAS Annual Con­ven­tion, an honor typ­i­cally reserved for Ohio high school students.

Also as a result of the Ash­land Uni­ver­sity OAS meet­ing, Myers’ project abstract was pub­lished in the Ohio Jour­nal of Sci­ence, Vol. 112, No. 1, April Pro­gram Abstracts.

“I feel real hon­ored, being one of only five stu­dents attend­ing the con­ven­tion out of the whole state of Ohio from fifth through 12th grades,” Myers said. “It was only my sec­ond year sci­ence fair project, so I was really sur­prised at how well it has been received.”

While in Boston Myers will have to show her orig­i­nal sci­ence fair project poster pre­sen­ta­tion on Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 15; and do a 10-minute oral podium pre­sen­ta­tion on Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 16, when she will have to answer ques­tions about her project.

It won’t be all work and no play in Boston. The AJAS Con­ven­tion includes tour options for the inductees. Myers said at the top of her list is a visit to the Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy, a.k.a. MIT, and the chance to sit in on a dis­sec­tion of a cow’s eye.

Myers’ 2011 Aquatic Oil Spill Clean-Up sci­ence fair project was not a one-time effort. She fol­lowed it up with a related project in 2012, Oceanic Oil Spill Clean-Up, and this year Myers’ sci­ence fair effort is titled Arc­tic Oil Spill Clean-Up. For next year’s sci­ence fair, Myers said she plans to con­tinue the same line of research, pos­si­bly with a bio-fuel twist.

Myers, who said her career goal is to become an emer­gency room trauma physi­cian, plays trum­pet in the mid­dle school band, is involved in the Big Wal­nut Soc­cer Asso­ci­a­tion pro­gram, and does wood­work­ing and rab­bit projects as a mem­ber of Wal­nut 4-Hers 4-H Club.

Abbie Myers is the daugh­ter of Phillip and Crys­tal Myers.

Posted by Gary Henery on Feb 6 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.