Zimardi discovers the science of winning
Gatos junior advances to state, international science competition
By Rebecca Ray
Daniel Zimardi won a first-place award at the California State Science Fair last year. This year he thinks his project is even better.
Zimardi, a 16-year-old junior at Los Gatos High School, will enter his project, "The Effect of Calcium Deprivation on the Bioluminescence of Marine Dinoflagellates," in the state fair May 20-21 in Los Angeles.
Zimardi won a trip to the state fair after receiving a $100 savings bond from the California Association of Professional Scientists, an $8,000 scholarship to the San José State University College of Science and a grand prize award for his biological sciences project at the countywide Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship. The competition took place at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center March 12-13.
With Zimardi's performance at the county fair, he also earned his first opportunity to compete at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Louisville, Ky., May 12-18.
He said that although he knew he'd make it to the state fair, he was surprised about the international fair.
Dinoflagellates, which are one-celled sea creatures, undergo a chemical reaction called bioluminescence to produce light. They create this light in order to attract bigger predators than the ones that are stalking them, so that the bigger predators can eat the other predators.
Zimardi tested a theory that dinoflagellates use calcium to produce light by placing dinoflagellates and different amounts of EGTA, which removes calcium, in five flasks. Zimardi, who was the first to test what happens when calcium is taken away, saw that when he removed the calcium, the dinoflagellates stopped producing light.
Until Zimardi took an advanced science research class at Los Gatos High last year, he had only entered one science fair, in elementary school, when he built a battery with his father. He took an advanced science research class because LGHS students need an applied science class in order to graduate. Students in the class are required to enter independent research projects at the county fair.
Zimardi says he wanted to study fireflies because he thought studying something that glows would be interesting. However, fireflies are hard to study, he says, because they fly around. So he studied dinoflagellates, which his teacher, Kim Burlinson, helped him to acquire.
Zimardi says he liked the advanced science research class better than most science classes because students worked independently and studied topics that interested them. In fact, he liked the class so much that he took it again this year.
"It's basically what you're going to do in college, so it's a great experience," he said.
Last year he studied whether dinoflagellates would adapt to the stimulus of him shaking their containers by producing less light.
Zimardi, who would like to attend the California Institute of Technology, plans to study bioinformatics, which combines his two main interests, biology and computer science.
Zimardi isn't the only student from Los Gatos who will go to the state fair. Two middle school students--Joseph Dickerson of St. Mary's School and Anton Sepetov of C. T. English Middle School--are also entering their projects.
For Dickerson, the trip is a repeat experience. Since this is his third time, he says, he somewhat knows what to expect. He adds that the experience at the University of Southern California dorms is great.
Dickerson, who had found a white snail and wondered why it was a different color from most of the snails he'd seen, tested whether the soil that snails ate made their shells change color. By setting gram weights on white and normal snail shells until they broke, he found that soil affected shell strength, not color, in that limestone in the soil made the shells harder. He also learned that the white snails were a different species.
At the county fair, Dickerson won a $100 award from the American Association of Laboratory Animal Science, a certificate of achievement from NASA, as well as a tour of its Ames Research Center, and a family membership to The Tech Museum of Innovation.
Sepetov studied traffic because of California's bad traffic problem, he said. He figured out the best speed for cars to travel in congested areas by rolling brass balls, which simulated cars, down slanted aluminum tracks and using a formula that accounted for stopping distance, reaction time and the speed and length of the car. He learned that cars are better off traveling 20 mph than 60 mph, because cars going 60 mph must travel further apart.
At the county fair, Sepetov won a $100 award from the Synopsys Outreach Foundation, a $50 award from the American Society of Civil Engineers and a $100 Castro Award for having one of the six best physical science projects among middle schoolers.
Although Sepetov competed in the state fair last year with his project on which toothpaste tastes the best, he didn't win any awards, and participated in the competition purely for fun. However, this year, he says, he's taking the experience more seriously and would like to win an award.
Other local students who won prizes in the county fair but who did not qualify for the state or international fairs included Ryan Black, Will Plachno and Lauren Whitney of C. T. English; Andrea Canova, Ashley Curtis, Sheena Donohue, Kelly Esrey, Genna Forster, Alex Gericke, Kevin Gericke, Kyle Kozlowski, Lauren McCaffrey, Mark Pecota, Alexis Reilly, Shelby Saso, Danny Wall and Patrick Weber of St. Mary's; and Brandon Downey, Darien Hirotsu, Sean Keenan, Bryon Miller, Anna Tsai and Cherie Williams of Los Gatos High.
C. T. English also won a special $50 award.
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