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Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Joe Dickerson, the only student from St. Mary's School to compete at the California State Science Fair this year, discusses science homework with Sheena Donohue in Bettye Ruff's seventh-grade science class.
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Local private school appears bent on a science dynasty
By Rebecca Ray
St. Mary's, a private school in Los Gatos, may only have about 300 students in grades one through eight, but it's making its presence known at science competitions near and far.
Seven out of nine students from St. Mary's won first-place awards from the 41st Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship.
Thousands of sixth- through 12th-graders entered projects at the annual county science fair March 16 and 17 at the San Jose Convention Center.
Jerome Kozlowski, a benefactor who donates $10,000 or more to the competition each year, gave each first-place winning individual and team $100. Kozlowski has given the first-place winners money since last year, when his grandson, Kyle, who attends St. Mary's, entered the fair.
St. Mary's student Joe Dickerson won one of two grand prizes awarded to seventh-graders, the Castro Family Award for Best Physical Science Project. Kyle Kozlowski and the other seventh-grade students from St. Mary's won first-prize awards in the categories in which they entered their projects.
For his project, "Troubled Water: The Effects of Urban Development on San Tomas Aquinas Creek," Dickerson measured the amount of sediment in the creek at various times during the rainy and dry seasons and determined how sedimentation related to rainfall. He also determined how much sediment moved past a point in the creek during the year by mapping out the depth of the creek bed and breaking the shape into geometric figures.
Kozlowski, Kelly Esrey and Lauren McCaffrey won first-place awards in the chemistry category. For his project, Kozlowski used a battery to produce an electric current, which induced a chemical reaction indicating that pennies were copper-plated.
Esrey and McCaffrey tested the effectiveness of air, plastic wrap, orange and lemon juice, and Ever-Fresh--a commercial product that prevents the browning of apples--to keep apples fresh.
Kevin Gericke, Sean McNamara and John Sobrato took a first-place award in the physics category and received a Certificate of Achievement from the American Society of Civil Engineers for showing the effects of friction on the surfaces of rubber, metal, glass and wood.
Dickerson, along with other competitors from the county fair, earned the right to compete at the California State Science Fair, held in Los Angeles on May 21 and 22. Although Dickerson didn't win a prize at the state fair, his father Francis said the judges expressed a lot of interest in his project.
St. Mary's success appears to be no fluke. Last year, Dickerson and Kozlowski won the grand prize award for middle school physics projects and received an expenses-paid trip to the state fair. There were only two grand prize awards for all three middle school grade levels last year, in comparison with this year, when there were two grand prize awards each for the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.
Dickerson and Kozlowski measured how air pressure at various temperatures and elevations--including that reached on a private airplane--affected the sizes of objects that contained air.
At the 2000 fair, Gericke and two other students took second place in two special industry awards, while two other projects received honorable mentions.
Francis Dickerson attributes St. Mary's success to its strong science program. According to the school's seventh-grade science teacher Bettye Ruff, the science program tries to allow students to do as much hands-on work as possible and has high parent involvement. Parents usually monitor lab sessions for safety.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
