High school students spend the summer as researchers
By Leigh Ann Maze
Three Los Gatos High School students spent six weeks this summer at UC-Davis conducting research a part of the Young Scholars Program. They were among 40 high school students from throughout California, and one student from Mississippi, to participate. They were selected from more than 120 applicants.
The local students were Daniel Holtzman, who will be a junior at LGHS in the fall, and Andrew Ow and Spencer Hawkins, who will both be seniors this fall.
The program began on June 25 and lasted six weeks. The students lived in the dormitories and participated in two weeks of morning lectures and afternoon research before beginning full-time research.
Holtzman, 16, worked with two professors, one from the entomology department and another from the nematology department. They studied the effects of a gene found in wild tomato plants to resist several species of aphids. Such research could lead to tomato crops that require less pesticides because they have natural resistance to pests. However, after analyzing his data, Holtzman concluded that the particular gene he was studying was only resistant to one species of aphid.
"I'm planning on going into a science career, so I'm glad I did it. Just learning that in lab work there are more failures than successes and that good research has to be done over and over again," said Holtzman. He became involved in the program after his chemistry teacher at LGHS gave a presentation on the program to the class.
Andrew Ow
Andrew Ow, 16, worked in a biological sciences lab studying how proteins are created in cells and then sent out into the body to perform their functions. Ow said he learned how important the right mathematical tools are when analyzing large amounts of data after three weeks of painstaking computer research.
"It was a lot of work, but there were a lot of very interesting people there and I made some lasting friends," Ow said. He became involved with the program through the LGHS science club.
Spencer Hawkins, 17, worked in the Community and Human Development Lab studying the use of gestures by caregivers with preverbal infants. Hawkins said he was one of the few people who participated in psychology-based research, which he chose because he was interested in learning more about bio-psychology.
By watching videos of infants and their caregivers interacting, Hawkins logged about 60 different gestures the caregivers used a total of 3,000 times into a computer. Hawkins then analyzed the data, comparing the age of the infants to the gestures used and caregiver's responsiveness to the gestures, among other relationships.
"It was interesting," Hawkins said of the program. "It was my first experience doing scientific research. It was a lot of work, but when you wanted to play there was hardly anything to do because it's such a small town."
The student researchers all made Power Point presentations describing their research at the end of the program on Aug. 3.
The program, in its 31st year at UC-Davis, is meant to give high school students an opportunity to work in state-of-the-art laboratories alongside university faculty and researchers. It cost about $2,700 per student to participate.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
