Engineering a future
On display: Wingate students show their stuff in Arizona AISES competition

Fort Wingate High School students (front, from left) Kyle Kyasyousie, Jerimiah Copi, Kimberly Becenti; (back) Shania Tom, LaToya Johnson, and Shayla Chatto recently took home honors in the Arizona Science and Engineering fair.— © 2009 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Karen Francis
Diné Bureau

WINGATE — Upon arrival at the Wingate High School, a display case congratulates six students who placed in the top four of the Arizona Science and Engineering Fair competition held March 21-24 in Phoenix.

The students, members of the school’s American Indian Science and Engineering Society, traveled to the Arizona State University Polytechnic campus to compete in the regional science fair. Jen Nichols, the AISES sponsor, said there were schools from six or seven states participating.

Though they didn’t know if they would be able to make the trip because of numerous challenges — including decreased funds — they worked on their projects for the past four months.

“We just kept plugging away,” Nichols said.

Jeremiah Copi and Kyle Kyasyousie, both juniors, took third place in the medical and health category for their project researching modern and traditional medicines.

“It was awesome,” Copi said about the trip to Phoenix for the science fair. “We had a lot of fun.”

Kyasyousie added, “We met a lot of cool people.”

For their project, the two hypothesized that most people they surveyed would use traditional medicine, but they found that modern medicine was used by many of those they surveyed.

“In our results, we found that oftentimes both types of medicine are used depending on the severity of the illness,” the report stated.

Shania Tom and Kimberly Becenti, both sophomores, took third place in behavioral and social science category. The two looked at the effects of different types of music on students’ reading and math test scores.

Tom said that they found that music was not necessarily a distraction for students.

About placing at the regional science fair, Becenti said, “We were surprised because there was a lot of other people.”

She said that they chose the topic because they thought it would be a lot of fun.

Sophomores Shayla Chatto and LaToya Johnson took fourth place in microbiology for their study comparing the effects of antiseptic mouthwashes in killing e. coli bacteria.

They found that Listerine provided the best antiseptic benefits among those they tested, which they had predicted in their hypothesis.

The two used ground beef, petri dishes and a control to test the effects of three mouthwashes by monitoring and recording bacterial growth.

Chatto and Johnson said that the field trip was fun and exciting.

Wingate High School AISES Vice President Britney King said she wasn’t surprised that her fellow club members placed at the science fair.

“I’m really proud of them,” she said.

Nichols said that academic field trips are important for students to connect their studies to the real world, meet new people and share new ideas.

“I think they deserve it,” she said.