On Saturday, February 26, Sophomores Angela Schray and Grace Daja and Junior Ben Pfefer competed in the PA Junior Academy of Science. Students began planning for this competition last September. They conducted their own scientific inquiries and created presentations to share their research. These presentations were held this past weekend at Northampton Community College.
2022 PJAS Finalists Angela Shray, (2nd place) Grace Daja (1st Place) and Ben Pfefer (1st Place)
Angela Schray’s focus was on “Exothermic Reactions” and included in the Chemistry category. She tested the level of heat against different types of elements. Grace Daja focused in the area of Behavioral Science with her experiment on “Investigating the Search Engine Manipulation Effect.” She had participants search the same topics/phrases and examined how tailored the results were to each individual. Finally, Ben Pfefer presented in the section on Microbiology with his experiment “How can heat concentration expedite the speed of artificial immunity?” He wondered if the concentration of the vaccine represented by Vitamin C increased with heat could result in a quicker rate of diffusion using egg membrane.
In PJAS students compete against the scientific criteria for experimentation and research. Angela Schray earned a 2nd Place award while Ben Pfefer and Grace Daja both earned 1st Place Awards. Pfefer and Daja will now present their findings at the state level competition to be held at Penn State University in University Park on May 15-17, 2022. Dr. Lisa Draper serves as the Adviser for PJAS and one of the judges for the competition. Mrs. Jazlee Figueroa also volunteered to serve as one of the judges this year.