UPDATE: Lane Tech Fair Building Futures in Science (PHOTOS)

Lane Tech College Prep High School sophomore Taylor Scott did everything but order the real human bones in her study for the school’s science fair Tuesday.

“I want to be a forensic anthropologist, so I did my project on the likelihood to break different bones in a car accident,” Scott said. “I didn’t have time to order actual bones, but I made a statistic. The purpose was to see if the parts of a car that exist to save lives actually help or not.”

Her findings? Seatbelts may break your ribs and airbags may break your facial bones, but they’ll save your life.

Scott is just one of nearly 200 students at the annual science fair showing off their hard work. Because interest in the event is so large, Lane Tech has to hold three fairs during the school year: one for 8th graders, one for freshman and one for sophomores and juniors.

And according to math teacher and Aquaponics lab expert Christine Gonzales, these students are doing more than just show at a fair. They’re preparing for careers.

“Some of the freshman work on their projects for four years, so you can imagine what it develops into,” Gonzales said. “I judged one student’s project as a freshman about heart murmurs and little rats. It was a great job for a freshman. And now, he’s at the University of Chicago, graduated first of his class last year doing that type of research.”

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And the school with the powerful Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) program has a lot of students like Scott: interested in science, and eyeing up a career in technology.

“Some of our former STEM students have gone on to national, even international science fairs,” Gonzales said. “We even had one girl who has a patent for her work with Alzheimer's.”

On Wednesday, the 8th grade group of students interested in science will exhibit their findings, followed by the freshman group in May 2013.

The following students will be advancing to the regional fair at Northeastern University in January:

HIGH SCHOOL:

Kamil Banet (10th grade - Microbiology)
Alyssa Mendez (10th grade - Health Science)
Aya Musleh (10th grade - Behavioral Science)
Arpad Neale (10th grade - Botany)
Paul Pagos (10th grade - Microbiology)
Alexander   Pauer (11th grade - Chemistry)
Marcelina Puc (10th grade - Microbiology)
Bushraa Shamshuddin (10th grade - Environmental Science)
Kornelia Skowron (11th grade - Environmental Science)
Nicole Williams (11th grade - Behavioral Science)

ACADEMIC CENTER

Isha Gani (8th grade - Engineering)
Dylan Haugh-Ewald (8th grade - Chemistry)
Carlos Reyes Zgarrick (8th grade - Engineering)
Hugh Yeh (8th grade - Chemistry)

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