Meet Some Top Students in the Intel Science Talent Search
[MP3]https://server1.vnkienthuc.com/files/3/Media/se-ed-intel-science-24mar11.mp3[/MP3]This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
The Intel Science Talent Search is the top science [A]competition [/A]for high school students in the United States. The forty [A]finalists[/A] were honored in Washington last week. They met with scientists and politicians. President Obama [A]welcomed[/A] them to the White House.
These forty students were [A]selected[/A] from almost two thousand contestants [A]nationwide[/A]. They had to present original [A]research[/A] to be judged by [A]professional scientists[/A]. The students showed their research [A]projects [/A]on large posters. The winners were [A]announced[/A] March fifteenth.
Wendy Hawkins is [A]executive director[/A] of the Intel Foundation. She says the forty finalists represented excellence across many areas of science.
WENDY HAWKINS: "These students bring work that is ready for [A]publication[/A] and in many cases has already been published in pretty much any branch of science that you can think of: physics, electrical engineering. And the [A]projects[/A] are deep and rich and [A]insightful[/A]."
Selena Li is from Fair Oaks, California. She wanted to find a more [A]effective[/A] treatment for liver cancer. She began her research four years ago. A scientist at the University of California, Davis, taught her how to design and do [A]experimental work[/A] in the laboratory.
SELINA LI: "I researched a new [A]approach[/A] to targeting liver cancer by basically starving the liver cancer cells to death, while leaving the normal cells [A]unaffected[/A]. And, to go one step further, I blocked a survival [A]pathway[/A] to make the treatment more effective."
Ms. Li placed fifth in the Intel Science Talent Search and was [A]awarded[/A] thirty thousand dollars.
Scott Boisvert lives near Phoenix, Arizona. He began using a laboratory at the University of Arizona at the age of fourteen. Over four years, he [A]completed[/A] a project studying a fungus linked to the decrease in [A]amphibians[/A] around the world.
He was trying to find out if different chemicals and [A]substances[/A] in the water could kill the fungus. He collected and tested water [A]samples[/A] across Arizona.
SCOTT BOISVERT: "My results were able to identify a list of chemicals that were [A]significant [/A]in the growth and in the movement of the fungus."
He placed tenth in the Intel competition and was awarded twenty thousand dollars.
Evan O'Dorney of Danville, California, won the top award of one hundred thousand dollars in this year's Intel Science Talent Search. For his [A]mathematical[/A] project, he compared two ways to [A]estimate[/A] the square root of an integer, a number with no fractional parts.
Wendy Hawkins at the Intel Foundation says these young people [A]represent[/A] the next generation of scientists who will help shape America's future.
