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Intel honors Calhoun seniors' reports

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Each year the Society for Science & The Public awards Research Report Badges to students entering the Intel Science Talent Search whose reports demonstrate a high degree of research and are exceptionally well written.

The reports, Bellmore-Merrick Central District science teachers say, could have been produced by graduate, rather than high school, science students.

Two Calhoun High School seniors –– Nicole Fegan and Paulina Fein –– recently received word that they have been awarded Research Report Badges for their papers submitted to the Intel contest last fall.

Here are profiles on each of them:

Nicole Fegan
From: Merrick
Age: 18
Will Attend: Brown University
Intel Badge: Research Report

Who knew? Sphagnum moss sucks mercury out of the air, so it’s an excellent “bioindicator” of how much of the potentially toxic element might be found at a particular locale.

Nicole Fegan, a three-year participant in Calhoun’s ASR Program, carried out her research at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s Trace Mercury Laboratory, under the guidance of Professor Anthony Capri, studying how much mercury that a sewage-sludge incinerator in Newhaven, Conn., spews into the air.

To do so, she analyzed moss samples taken from points in concentric circles around the plant. She received help from researchers at Yale University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, who sent her samples for her laboratory study at John Jay.

Fegan found that mercury levels were indeed highest closest to the plant; that is, within three miles of its smokestack. She noted, however, that they were elevated as far as 10 miles away from the plant.

She wanted to study mercury, she said, because it has the potential to affect human health. “There are homes a block away from this incinerator,” she said.
She also said that mercury “bioaccumulates” in the natural world. It wafts through the air into ponds and lakes. Fish take it in. Other large animals –– including humans –– then eat the fish.

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