Ten-year-old Ben Ghemrawi set out on a mission to clean up Tucson. But first, he had to find out what area was the dirtiest.
He went to nine locations and placed index cards coated with Vaseline in high spots. After two days, he went back and counted how many airborne particles were stuck to each card. The "messiest" spot was outside of Petco near Tanque Verde and Pantano roads. The cleanest location was his backyard.
"If it keeps getting polluted, the world won't be that healthy, and people might die because we actually get diseases from it," Ben said. "I was trying to find out the messiest place, and then try to stop the people from doing whatever they're doing to make it so bad."
Ben said he has not approached Petco with his findings, but all of his results will be on display to the public at the Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair starting Wednesday.
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The fair at the Tucson Convention Center, 260 S. Church Ave., will exhibit 1,440 entries, representing the top kindergarten-through-12th-grade projects from seven counties in Southern Arizona.
On Tuesday, volunteer judges will decide the best science projects in a variety of categories, including grade and science field. The top four students will go on to the international science fair in San Jose, Calif., in May.
About 200 schools are submitting student works to the fair, including Ben's school, the Sonoran Science Academy - Broadway, 6880 E. Broadway.
On Friday, Mayor Bob Walkup gave a presentation at the school about the importance of science. After the talk, Walkup discussed the role of the science fair in the community. "Anything that we do that can stimulate our young people to understand science and technology is of great value," the former engineer said. "The science fair really does a great job presenting a problem and letting kids work through a solution."
Doolen Middle School, winner of the fair's Top Science Middle School award last year, will defend its title with a variety of projects.
Merin Thomas, 12, experimented to see if using reflectors and concentrators could improve the efficiency of solar cells.
"In Tucson, we get a lot of light, so solar cells are really common, but they're really expensive," she said. "I came up with the idea that if we could make them smaller and put more light on (the solar cells), it wouldn't be as expensive and could be more common to the public."
Merin used parabolic mirrors and Fresnel lenses to concentrate light onto a solar cell. She found that reflecting light onto the cell using a parabolic mirror doubled the amount of energy produced.
Merin's teacher, Ivan Yocum, who won the Top Science Teacher Award at last year's fair, said projects such as Merin's give students skills and knowledge that will help them throughout their lives.
"These are the students who will go on to have the real scientific and technical skills to be able to be competitive in the world," he said.
At Tucson High Magnet School, Margaret Wilch teaches a science class that requires students to create projects for the fair. She said that each year she watches as students become incredibly well-informed and confident scientists.
"They're following their own curiosity, and it's a very powerful way to learn about science and what science is," she said. "It's a way to understand our world."
Contact NASA Space Grant intern Otto Ross at 573-4125 or oross@azstarnet.com
