Curiosity guides Cloquet students to science fair success
Oct. 3—CLOQUET — Over the last year, three Cloquet High School students have attended a laundry list of regional, national and international science fairs, and the accolades have piled up.
Sophomore Parker Sickman presented his project "Microgreens to Microgravity: Exploring the efficacy of seedlings as a food source for space exploration" at the 2023 Genius Olympiad, an international fair, in June.
Accompanying him were seniors Grace Lavan and Johanna Bernu with their projects titled "A Continuation Study of the Effects of Line 3 Oil Pipeline Construction on Gray Wolves (Canis lupus) on the Fond du Lac Reservation?" and "Disinfectant Properties of Nuphar advena: An Ethno-pharmaceutical Approach," respectively.
In addition to the Genius Olympiad, where Lavan's project scored in the top 25% and received an honorable mention, and Bernu's in the top 5%, receiving a gold medal — something long-time science fair mentor Dr. Cynthia Welsh said has only happened to her a handful of times throughout her a career — Lavan has attended and received awards at the Minnesota State Science Fair; National ArcGIS Story map competition where she was the only student to represent the state of Minnesota; and the Minnesota 4-H State Competition at the Minnesota State Fair.
Bernu has a similarly long list of honors, including the Minnesota State Science Fair, where in addition to earning a gold medal, her project was awarded a community innovation award; National Stockholm Junior Waterprize, where she was the only Minnesota student chosen to represent for the second year in a row; and the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair where she was offered a $40,000 scholarship to Arizona State University.
And that's just in 2023.
Cloquet science fair mentor William Bauer said "To contextualize, when we're talking about these international competitions, that's a huge thing unto itself ... sometimes we're like 'well, we won this, that and the other thing' but even just being there is huge."
As seniors, Lavan and Bernu have been developing their research for years. "(Your project) just kind of snowballs, and it can get more complicated as you understand your project field better," said Lavan.
Even though these three young scientists are able to articulate the complexities of things like the effects different levels of gravity have on microgreen growth, how ArcGIS can be used to track wolf movement and how yellow water lilies can be used as a disinfectant comparable to chlorhexidine, they all started from the same relatively simple starting point: curiosity.
"We read a study, thought, 'this is interesting, let's go for it,' and we jump in ... none of us have piggybacked off of collegiate research," Bernu said.
"Students should be doing research that they're interested in, so we really try to focus on their interests first and their projects second," said Bauer. Sickman added "It makes you enjoy it more, too."
Sickman became interested in his project area after meeting someone in the Twin Cities who grew microgreens with aquaponics.
"I was kinda interested in the fact that he could just grow these tiny little plants that were more nutritious than their counterparts of like actual plants. And then I also wanted to tie in what microgreens could be used for, so that's why I was wondering if they could be grown in space," he said.
Lavan got her science fair start doing medical research, but realized she wasn't a huge fan of it because of how hard it is to experiment with people outside of surveys. Her interest in wildlife research came at the right time as a graduating senior was looking to hand her science fair project down to another student to continue the research — Lavan took the opportunity and began researching wolves.
After noticing the amount of protests accompanying the construction of the Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline and reading about wildlife disturbance from other pipelines, Lavan wanted to see if the wolves in the area were affected.
Bernu has always been interested in plants, she said.
"I've always been a bit of an odd child in that I really liked reading plant books, which probably has something to do with all of the people I've sat and talked with throughout my life, all of the stories and everything that I've been taught and handed down throughout generations," Bernu said.
She took her curiosity to the book, "Plants Used by the Great Lakes Ojibwa" searching for a plant that could be used as a disinfectant since she thought that would be easy to test and discovered the yellow water lily.
Currently, all three students are gearing up for another year of research, and for Lavan and Bernu, a new chapter in their life as scientists.
Sickman is still tossing around ideas for science fair this year and is considering doing something with microgravity.
For Lavan's last year of science fairs, she is looking to study how dense of a human population wolves tolerate in their territories in our area. She's also working on getting her GIS certificate through Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College. Next year, she's hoping to go to the University of Minnesota Duluth to major in GIS and Earth and environmental science major. She said she wants to continue what she's been doing in science fair, but as a professional.
Bernu is planning a research proposal on how the yellow water lily could be used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes patients in addition to continuing lab studies to further strengthen her previous data points.
After graduating in May 2024, Bernu wants to study ethno-pharmacology, but is still considering where. Because of the $40,000 scholarship offer from Arizona State University, Bernu said ASU has a "pretty big pull."
Welsh and Bauer described science fair as giving students a jumpstart on skills that are valuable even outside of science.
"Seeing our students succeed, whether that's middle schoolers when they make it to the state science fair and they spend a day in the Twin Cities ... or these guys going to international fairs, it's really cool just to see them succeed," said Bauer.
