While young science pioneers erect ambitious models and formulate complex mathematical equations each year for the famed Intel Science Talent Search, a determined class at Midwood High School attempts to break down and comprehend the inner workings of society.
When asked to point out the resources for the Intel Social Science Research program, its director, Dr. George Hero, had only to stretch out his arms, look to his sides and call the space he symbolically contained, “the living laboratory.” He points to Midwood High School’s access to its neighbors, Brooklyn College and the elementary school P.S. 152 across the street. Both are what Hero calls his precocious students’ “playgrounds.” His students can visit the school across the street or stride the aisles of books at Brooklyn College’s library.
Back in 1987, when Hero attempted to get the program off the ground, the director of the Intel Science Research program at the school scoffed and offered a sardonic “Good luck.” There was no model upon which to create the new program. Hero says he simply applied the same methodology of the natural sciences to a different subject, which was certainly not as easy as it sounds. When one of his students won a full scholarship to a prestigious university in England, however, the program was at once off the ground and up for praise.
Today, an unassuming, but ambitious 17-year-old girl lingering in the media room has the impressive title of Intel Semifinalist under her belt, and currently stands as testament to that luck and to the talent Hero aims to have recognized.
Amanda Fried is jovial and reserved, and she was chosen this year with several hundred others from a pool of 1,705 competitors who were in the race for what is known as the “junior Nobel prize.”
Over more than 60 years, the renowned science competition has propelled thousands of high school seniors to create original research projects to be recognized by a national jury of highly regarded professional scientists, according to Science Service, the non-profit Washington D.C.-based organization who runs it. The competition is sponsored by Intel Corporation, a computer chips company based in California.
Amanda is currently in the running for the top prize, a $100,000 four year scholarship; meanwhile, she gratefully accepted $1,000 for herself and her school. She was also offered a full scholarship to Stonybrook University and $20,000 scholarship to MIT. There were sparkles in her eyes when she uttered “MIT.” With casual confidence she stated her grand aspiration: a career in chemical engineering.
The winning paper did not, however, relate to her future aspiration. Instead it illuminated a topic that Amanda was interested in: Analysis of Locus of Control of High School Students Based on Academic Performance. She was looking into the question of where students assign the responsibility for events in their lives. To produce her thorough analysis, she conducted extensive research and surveys at several schools.
Amanda, while thoroughly concentrated on her academics, does limit herself to only her school work at Midwood. She’s also the editor-in-chief of her school newspaper, The Argus, and a student in the College Now program through which she takes courses at Kingsborough Community College.
But the Intel prize provides something else.
“There’s respect that people know you did something,” Amanda, who is tall of stature and profoundly grounded, said.
***
A precocious teenager and future Intel competitor was hard at work in the media room at Inte, along with 20 or so of her peers
Nathalie, who immigrated from Belarus, Russia at the age of ten and learned English in no more than two years, is unpredictable in the same way Amanda Fried is. Nathalie is part of the Medical Science Institute branch at Midwood High School, and like Amanda Fried who will also not pursue a career in social science, Nathalie wants to be a cardiothoracic surgeon.
But for right now, Nathalie is concentrated on one thing: nabbing the prize—the top one.
“I definitely want to win, and I think if I work very hard, I will,” she said.
Nathalie, like other Intel hopefuls at Midwood, underwent a year of studying research methodology in her sophomore year before plunging into the research she is conducting now: research that is to support her topic on birth order and self-esteem, essentially how siblings affect one another in academic performance in urban high schools.
For Hero, with the influx of students and their ideas and innovations, comes an expansion of his own knowledge. “My field of specialty has opened up enormously,” the Fordham and CUNY-educated teacher said. Hero is pushed to learn more and more about his field, while pushed to explore other domains.
But while Hero welcomes mounds of responsibilities on his plate, it is clear that he cannot do it alone. Besides the tight budget from the school, finding mentors for students can sometimes be difficult. Even with easy access to Brooklyn College and its warehouse of experts in almost any field, volunteer mentors from among those who can barely find the time for their own students are hard to find.
Generally, these mentors are paired with students who often help mentors in their own undertakings, be it in a hospital, laboratory or university. For Midwood students, however, it seems that their innovations are to be built from the ground up, as had their program years ago
“It’s a sacrifice to be able to work with a student,” Hero admitted. Hero, who lives around the corner from school, has made it his commitments for over 23 years to do just that. But Hero, whose specialty is in history, although well-versed in research methodology and its applications to other disciplines, cannot provide each student with all the resources their respective projects require.
Sharyn Mondschein, a librarian at Midwood, sits at a desk that is essentially at the crossroads of students and a world of knowledge. She is witness to the amount of hard work these “gifted students” put into their projects.
“The students were amazed to see the resources that were available to them,” she said in reference to the research tools she helps them employ in their studies.
These students that spring about Mondschein’s book-filled quarters in thirst for more and more information are very likely the individuals whose ideas and advances, “will help shape the world we live in for the generations to come,” as Intel Chairman Craig Barret has characterized them.
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