Young Naturalist Awards 2002

Natural History, Sept, 2002

For the American Museum of Natural History's fifth annual Young Naturalist Awards, students in grades 7 through 12 were invited to embark on an expedition that focused on a topic in biology, earth science, or astronomy and to document and analyze their observations. The winning entries (selected from more than 700) are summarized below. Full-length versions are available in a catalog published by the Museum's National Center for Science Literacy, Education, and Technology and can also be read online at www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/youngnaturalistawards/.

Pillbugs: Little Creatures in My Backyard, by Nancy Cheng (Wichita High School East, Wichita, KS; Grade 11)

Last April, looking among the crocuses, hyacinths, and tulips in her family's garden, Nancy Cheng noticed that the Hosta plants (also known as plantain lilies) were in "pitiful shreds" and were "dotted with holes, like some irregular green variety of Swiss cheese. The Hosta had been ravaged by a swarm of "roly-polies," or pillbugs. She resolved to find out about these tiny crustaceans, which are less than two-thirds of an inch long. When she conducted a dietary-preference experiment, Nancy observed that pillbugs make no distinction between lawn clippings and young plant shoots. She thereby figured out a way that pillbugs could harmlessly coexist with a garden's plants.

Deformed Frogs: The Big Mystery, by John DeLeo (W. T. Clarke Middle School, Westbury, NY; Grade 7)

During annual summer visits to his uncle's house in Vermont, John DeLeo does a lot of frog hunting (mostly leopard frogs and American toads) in a large pool beside the Green River. "Because frogs are so sensitive to their environment, they may be good early indicators of an ecosystem going bad," he explains. When John began finding deformed frogs, he decided to look for potential causes, coming up with the following four possibilities: chemicals, invasion by a trematode, increased ultraviolet radiation caused by ozone depletion, and predation during the tadpole stage.

Investigating the Effects of Water Pollution on Daphnia magna, by Mauree Gibson (Central Lee School, Donnellson, IA; Grade 8)

When Mauree Gibson began to study the minute crustaceans named Daphnia magna (members of a group known as water fleas), she discovered her "new best friends." Species of Daphnia, she learned, are everything from fish food to barometers of toxicity in wetlands. Her research revealed mysterious growths on her tiny specimens and subsequently led her to consult with parasitologists Dieter Ebert in Switzerland and Kirsten Christoffersen in Denmark. While she hasn't yet figured out what the growths are, Mauree regards her work as "only the beginning."

A Beach Walk in New Mexico, by Elspeth Iralu (Home School Program, Gallup, NM; Grade 9)

"Today I went to New Mexico's seashore," writes Elspeth Iralu of a hike in landlocked New Mexico, to an area with huge boulders made entirely of seashells. Once home, Elspeth (who was also one of last year's winners) learned that the fragments she had collected were fossils from the Cretaceous Period, when all of Europe and half of North America were submerged in saltwater. "I was reminded that fossils are not just shells," she notes, "but evidence of a past ecosystem that has evolved into our present ecosystem."

Alien Plant Invaders, by Katherine Jones (Cold Spring Harbor High School, Cold Spring Harbor, NY; Grade 11)

Thirty-five percent of the approximately 3,200 plant species in New York State, Katherine Jones found out, are nonnatives such as garlic mustard, Japanese barberry, and kudzu, a "green leafy monster" that is almost unstoppable once it invades. Katherine made it her business to identify her own backyard's invaders--which include three fast-growing Norway maples (the species is from northern Europe) that grow at the edge of her garden and range from three to twenty feet high. Removal of a Norway maple is a large task, she laments, because "the entire root system must be removed or the tree will resprout." While Katherine has not found kudzu on the property, she keeps a watchful eye on a patch that is flourishing nearby.

Turtle Basking in New York City, by Lillian Lam (Abraham Lincoln High School, Brooklyn, NY; Grade 9)

"Manhattan's own Central Park is home to a diverse ecosystem," writes Lillian Lam, by way of introducing her urban research project on turtles, particularly their basking behavior in the park's (you guessed it) Turtle Pond. Lillian's fascination with turtles began at age nine, when she received a red-eared slider as a pet. For this project, she focused on eastern painted turtles. During three expeditions to the pond, Lillian painstakingly observed and recorded turtle behavior, concluding that "conducting an expedition requires perseverance and thorough observation."

Salmon Creek: A Search for the Missing Salmon, by Kristen Marini (Maple Grove Middle School, Battle Ground, WA; Grade 7)

Kristen Marini wondered why salmon were disappearing from the little creek behind her house, a feeder stream of the Columbia River. So she intensively surveyed two eleven-square-yard sections of the surrounding forested ecosystem, counting each plant and also identifying species that inhabit the creek--from trout and salmon to crawdads, periwinkles, and larval caddis flies (which she describes as "little worms that glue themselves to a rock and put pebbles around themselves for protection"). Concluding that the area behind her house is healthy, Kristen is eager to test other localities nearby and to solve the ongoing mystery.