James Abbate
Class of 2006
Freeport High School
Topic: Motility in Carnivorous Plants
Presentation (ppt)
Research Paper (pdf)
Presentation (Powerpoint)
About:
Such a magnificent opportunity must be given praise if this program is to flourish beyond its already substantial organization. In March of this year, I partook in the annual Freeport High School Science Fair. My research teacher, Mr. Edward Irwin, informed me that there was a science program scouring for fresh faces to accept into its society. Now I’ve seen Dr. Sat Bhattacharya before when he spoke at the high school and I found his speech very interesting. It made me wonder what possibilities I could explore in the field of research; especially concerning career considerations. I decided to give this program a chance and apply for it through an interview. The night of the science fair, I was interviewed by Dr. Bhattacharya and I was content because I believed it went well. Several weeks later, I learned that I had been accepted into the Harlem Children Society.
I was very excited because this was the first time I had entered into such a prestigious internship. I considered it my first major summer occupation. At first, I was assigned to Dr. Marcio Maeda’s lab at NY Presbyterian Hospital, but unfortunately I was relocated because of his travel to Nigeria to continue his AIDS studies. Fortunately, however, I was eventually reassigned to continue my research in my very own high school lab. Here I continued my ongoing science experiment that I’ve been involved in for over two years. I finally had more time and dedication on a daily basis in which two months of work equivocated to about a school year’s worth of research and experimentation. Using new equipment, I was able to study my carnivorous plants more closely, as I was previously limited by a lack of certain technologies. A high-tech digital microscope provided for excellent photo captures of the cellular structure of my plants. By comparing it with a water-expanding fungus, I’ve been able to enhance identification. Procedures such as electrophoresis, the Ouchterlony assay, the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and paraffin-embedding have also been carried out throughout the course of the summer. My partner, Aashmeeta Yogiraj, and I have furthered our project exponentially and because of this summer program, we have been able to discover many new findings.
The weekly meetings at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital were very interesting, as they provided for a sharing of everybody’s scientific accomplishments and inquiries. All of us collaborated together as we listened to one project presentation after another. Most of them dealt with problems humanity and our world face today, which I find inspirational. Science is the key to solving these dilemmas, as only the gathering of minds can resolve the conflicts that plague today’s society and planet.
In October, I will be participating in the Third Annual Harlem Children Society’s Street Fair, in which I will prepare a visual explanation of my project on a poster board, as well as a several-minute oral presentation. I’m very excited to conclude my participation in this year’s program with a bang as opposed to a whimper. I believe that this upcoming street fair will successfully unite anxious and curious young minds, as well as established scientists. Education, discipline, and strategy are the three key elements in the program, as it sketches a larger picture of how life functions. “Credit must be given to the Harlem Children Society for painting a somewhat forgotten picture of true completeness which acted as an incentive to some of the scientific statements.”