HOLMDEL – Needing a challenge more so than balancing chemical equations, two scholastic students in Holmdel are pursuing their passion for science.
The teenagers will now conduct investigative research beyond the barriers of routine science courses.
The Holmdel High School students, senior Shayna Ahteck, 17, and junior Claudia Zhang, 16, have been accepted into the Junior Academy of the New York Academy of the Sciences program.
The students will take part in an international collaboration effort and work toward investigating solutions that could supplement real world problems.
Final solutions, Ahteck said, will be presented at a global summit in New York City next July.
Solutions to the questions presented to participants will be pitched to professionals who could oversee their implementation in areas that include wildfire tracking and prevention, advancements in new age technology and aerospace engineering.
The students said the global outreach program that is designed to “inspire and prepare the next generation of innovators” consists of participants from more than 100 countries.
More than 6,500 applications were submitted and 586 students from 57 countries are active in the program this year, according to the organization.
Using the digital portal ‘Launchpad,’ the students said the will use asynchronous communication to collaborate on research initiatives with students from across the globe.
Ahteck and Zhang said students may choose to pursue the research topics that strike their interest. Students do not need to participate in each area of study, they said.
“These challenges are posed by companies,” Ahteck said. “Certain rewards are offered to students who come up with solutions while they are guided by a mentor.”
Ahteck said she eager to take part in the research challenge, which pertains to smart technology and its integration with household appliances and other connectable devices.
“We’re going into a global age of smarter devices,” Ahteck said. “There is a need to make sure these devices are safe, secure and have meaningful interactions with our data.”
Zhang, who has a strong interest in chemistry, said she is eager to take part in challenges that correspond with financial incentives and modes of water purification if they are proposed in this round of the program.
These students are no stranger to hard work.
The upperclassmen are enrolled in another year of their high school’s Honors Advanced Research class where the two said learning goes beyond regurgitating facts from a general science textbook.
Previously working with duckweed for a project in her elevated course, Zhang said she successfully transitioned the flowering aquatic plant into an efficient source of biofuel, fuel extracted from a living matter.
Zhang said the “invasive species” has a significant starch concentration. By converting the natural starch into bioethanol, a fuel alternative to gasoline, Zhang said, she proposed the natural alternative to corn bioethanol.
“One of the current issues using corn as a source of bioethanol is the food versus fuel prices. How much of your land are you going to spend growing the corn as food and how much (would it cost) for bioethanol production.
“Duckweed can be grown on ponds as an alternative and it doesn’t have a lot of the problems corn has with waste and there is no sort of soil exhaustion with duckweed,” Zhang said.
Zhang said she will continue to analyze duckweed and its potential transformation into bioplastics, which she described as plastics made from renewable sources.
“I guess you can say duckweed and I have a special relationship,” Zhang laughed.
Now in her third year of the research course, Ahteck, who has also studied the particles of duckweed, said she previously conducted a data-driven sociology experiment where she “connected classmates to classmates” using a graph making program that showed individual relationships to one another.
Currently, Ahteck said she is working on several projects, including a bacterial analysis of bathroom passes, while advocating for alternative solutions, a wearable sensory unit that could correspond with smart devices, and the transformation of paper into plastic.
“My passion for STEM in general started when I entered the research class,” Ahteck said. “Prior to this, I went through the typical three sciences courses most high schools go through. You sit there, you memorize some concepts and you vomit it out on the (Advanced Placement) biology test.
“It feels like you are not working toward anything. With research, it was suddenly like you have a project in front of you, you need to read these papers, figure out what you are doing and report back to your advisor as if you are an expert on this. It’s that faith in your capabilities … that I love.
“I love applying the knowledge that I have. It suddenly made more sense than concepts in a textbook … You don’t know what is going to happen … It’s that allure of the unknown that drives me to pursue these projects,” Ahteck said.
Zhang, who echoed her classmates’ sentiment, said her passion for science is derived from her love of research and her innate desire to observe and analyze her surroundings.
The students said they hope to one day participate in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.