By Emily Laermer / Staff Writer
Why is the sky blue?
Peter Ku, an incoming freshman at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South, can answer that question.
”Light is composed of all colors in the spectrum,” he said. “The nitrogen particles scatter the shorter wavelengths, like blues and violets.”
Peter’s video explanation of this theory, based on the Rayleigh spectrum, helped him become a Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist National Finalist. Peter will compete against nine other 11- to 15-year-old scientists from across the country in the Discovery Education Finals in October. The NASA-hosted competition will be at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Washington, D.C., and the winner will receive a $50,000 scholarship.
Although Discovery initially was going to chose one semifinalist from each state and the District of Columbia, only 44 semifinalist were picked. Then the list were narrowed down to the top 10 finalists.
”It didn’t really sink it at first,” Peter said. “The head judge called me and told me about it and he was trying to elicit this extravagant reaction. I was happy inside, but I wasn’t screaming at this point.”
The competition required candidates to submit videos answering one of five questions.
”I chose this question because I have always wondered about that since I was a young kid,” Peter said. “In eighth grade my science teacher brought it up, and although we talked about it for a little while, it was a short answer and I didn’t completely understand it. This gave me the opportunity to find out why the sky is blue.”
Peter’s two-minute video explains the answer to the question using two visuals. In one, he poured powdered milk into water and shined a light through it to show the wavelengths in the liquid.
”The water close to the light is blue, and further out it gets red and orange,” he said. “This also demonstrates why sunsets are red and orange.”
Peter also shined a flashlight through a cube onto a white board in order to show how the wavelengths get refracted into different colors.
”I researched a lot of things, and this seemed like the easiest way for the audience to understand what I was saying,” Peter explained.
Peter, who was involved with Science Olympiad during eighth grade, was nominated by his coach, Rae McKenna, for the competition. Peter participated in five Science Olympiad challenges — the maximum amount of competitions a student is allowed to enter — and received medals in all five. The top six competitors or teams in each event receive medals.
He placed first in the “Crave the Wave” competition, which Peter said helped him with his Discovery video. In this challenge, students discuss electromagnetic and water waves.
The other events he participate in were the “Write It, Do It,” “Disease Detective,” “Science Word” and Ecology competitions.
Peter was also involved in the Science Bowl, a “Jeopardy”-style competition with four other students from his middle school, and Math Counts, a team that competes in math challenges with other teams around the area. He plans to continue with these activities in high school.
Although Peter enjoys science, his favorite subject in school is math.
”I like finding out different ways to solve problems,” he said. “There are always new ways of learning how to do things.”
It was only during the past few years that Peter started enjoying science as much.
”Science Olympiad and Bowl made me appreciate science more,” he said. “There are many different types of science and you can study whatever appeals to you. It’s about learning about the world — why things happen and what will happen with experiments.”
In addition to learning about wavelengths and light, Peter said that he enjoys learning about anatomy.
”What I like about science is that, no matter how smart you are, you never know everything,” Peter said. “You can always learn more.”

