By BRIAN J. HOWARD
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: April 17, 2005)

Tri County winners High school Michelle Lustrino, Lakeland; Jenna Lynch, Yorktown; Vani Nambudiri, Blind Brook. Middle school Rose Bisogno, John Carr and Julian Zuluaga, H.H. Wells; Jonathan O'Hanlon, Edgemont; David Schwartz and Max Siegel, John Jay; Christiana Stebe-Glorious, Garrison; Alyssa Trombitas, The Harvey School.

KATONAH — Fourth-grader Kady Neill of Garrison had a theory about her 14-year-old Jack Russell terrier.

For two weeks she and her father, a musician, played guitar, trumpet, flute and piano to the dog and kept detailed notes about its responses. Her methodology and results were laid out in meticulous detail, replete with photos.

"My theory was that Lily, my dog, would respond most to the loudest instrument," Neill said, figuring that was the piano. "But I was wrong, and it was the trumpet, because my dad's such a loud trumpet player."

It's OK to be wrong about a theory, she said, as long as you learn from your experiments. That's a lesson organizers of yesterday's Tri County Science and Technology Fair at The Harvey School in Katonah can appreciate. Presented by the Putnam Children's Discovery Center, the fair enables winners to go on to state and national competitions.

Executive Director Janice Newman said the inclusion of elementary and middle school students sets the 12-year-old fair apart.

"Our feeling is science starts early, and if you capture it early, you grow up with the science," Newman said.

Exhibitors showcased a love of science nurtured from the earliest grade levels through college-level research. So Matthew Sickles of F.E. Bellows School in Rye Neck asked what happened if you put a flower in colored liquid, while Orlando DeLeon studied the complexation of C60 with an amphiphilic nanobowl.

A junior at Gorton High School in Yonkers, DeLeon admitted his research required some explaining. In short, he studied ways to improve the effectiveness of a compound commonly used in drug therapies, including those for people infected with HIV.

Nearby, Wesley Matelich explained his study of whirling disease, which affects trout populations across the country. An avid fly fisherman, Matelich did most of his research during the past year and a half at a ranch outside Billings, Mont. Back home in Westchester, where he is a sophomore at Rye Country Day School, he has found little awareness of the disease he hopes to help eradicate.

"It's more important (in Montana)," he said. "It's an industry. Around here, it's not the same thing."

Rockland Country Day School in Congers had entries from elementary, middle and high school, including Ian Askins' engineering technology project: "The Good, The Bad & The Noise."

Joyce Thomas, a fourth-grader at Cortlandt's St. Columbanus School, studied the surface tension of water. She did so by using dish soap to propel a paper boat across a tub of water.

But the experiment required fresh water each time.

"So I can't do it again because I already did it once for the judge," she said.

Ramapo High School's Joe George looked at the "Effects of Baldness on the Heart" for his biology entry.

In all, 166 students from 29 schools presented projects that were judged by 54 teachers, scientists, health-care professionals and college students.

Steve Griffee's daughter Laura, a fourth-grader at Southeast's Melrose School, simulated a tornado using water vapor inside a box of plexiglass and wood. He marveled as much at her experiment as his own ability to transport it to the fair in one piece. It was worth it, though, because this is the way to learn about science, in his view.