Two fare well at the fair

Jill Niemeier, an eighth grade student at Kennett Middle School recently entered a project, "Emergency Communications, pt. 2" in the 52nd Annual Southeast Missouri Regional Science Fair and received nine different prestigious awards for her work. [Click to enlarge]

Two students at Kennett Middle School recently participated in the 52nd Annual Southeast Missouri Regional Science Fair and received several awards for their submitted projects.

KMS seventh grader Cara Daugherty entered a project surrounding the hypothesis that Portland cement can be used as a flux to make glass.

According to Daugherty, the purpose of her project was to explore the idea of using Portland cement in the glass making process.

Cara Daugherty created her project called "Concrete Glass," which she entered recently into the 52nd Annual Southeast Missouri Regional Science Fair. [Click to enlarge]

Daugherty explains, "Portland cement consists of various calcium compounds. Calcium is one of the major fluxes used in glass making. Because Portland cement is so readily available to the public, it could possibly be an inexpensive source of raw materials for making glass."

To test her theory, Daugherty first began by obtaining stoneware clay, a form of clay that will go to high temperatures without melting. She used this clay to create tiles which were fired, allowing them to become hard and yet, still water absorbent. Then Daugherty glazed the tiles, fired them in a kiln again, and allowed them to cool. Once they were cool, Daugherty inspected the tiles to see if they were useable in a glass mix.

"After finding a suitable tile during the testing, I then tested the glass for different colors," Daugherty said. "I did so by adding various kinds of metal oxides to the basic glass mixture and firing them to 1250˚C. The glass with colorants was then fired by two different methods which included oxidation and reduction."

In the end, Daugherty's hypothesis was proven to be true, however, the process had both its advantages and disadvantages.

"Based on my testing, if Portland cement is to be used in glass making, I suggest that you make just enough to do the job, where the glaze does not sit for any length of time," Daugherty concluded to judges.

Although there is an obvious advantage to using Portland cement in making glass because it is so readily available and affordable, the reason a major disadvantage of using the form of cement is evident is that unless the glaze required to be used during the process is kept underwater at all times, it will set up in a semi-hard state, making it difficult to use, sometimes even becoming so hard it appeared to almost concrete like.

For her efforts, Daugherty, who was sponsored by KMS faculty member, Christy Daugherty, was awarded third place in chemistry and the Jason Lindsey Future Scientist Award, which included a gift basket of science goodies and $100 cash.

Both titles are considered to be prestigious awards in the competition which included 177 entries submitted by 236 students from 18 other schools who took part in the Junior Division.

In addition to Daugherty's accomplishments, second year science fair participant Jill Niemeier, an eighth grade student at KMS who was sponsored by Robert Gill, racked up numerous awards for her entry, "Emergency Communications II."

In total, Niemeier, who received critical acclaim from the judges during last year's event for the first installment of her Emergency Communications project, was presented nine different awards during this year's competition.

Those awards included:

* First place in Engineering.

* The Cape Girardeau Area Engineers Club Award, which includes a $50 savings bond.

* The Best Model Award in the Junior Division.

* The Montgomery Bank Award, which includes a $200 savings bond and a membership to the St. Louis Science Center.

* The National Society of Professional Engineers award for the most outstanding engineer project.

* The U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps award

* The Overall Junior Physical Science award for the most outstanding project in the areas of Biochemistry, Chemistry, Earth and Space Sciences, Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Sciences, and Physics categories.

* The SSP Middle School Program award which allows her to summit her work to a national competition in Washington, D.C.

* Top Eighth Grade Student award.

Niemeier's submission addressed a problem that is of great concern to residents of her hometown of Kennett, Mo., whether they realized it before now or not.

The problem Niemeier confronted head on with her project surrounds the fact that if the New Madrid Fault area ever experienced a major earthquake or other major disaster, all normal means of communication would be lost.

Niemeier explains, "Underground cables would be cut, and cellular telephone towers would fall, leaving many communities, like Kennett for example, without normal methods of communicating for help.

"Even satellite phones may or may not work due to propagation conditions or interruptions."

According to the eighth grader who is obviously well beyond her years, "Should a major earthquake occur in the Kennett area, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) considers that the Kennett area will be extremely devastated."

"FEMA currently has no plans to come closer to Kennett than West Plains, Mo.," Niemeier said earnestly.

"The major attention will be devoted to cities like St. Louis, Mo., and Memphis, Tenn."

Niemeier said because of this circumstance, emergency communications becomes a major life saving resource for any community devastated by earthquake, flooding, or tornado.

The purpose of Niemeier's two year project was to not only grow educationally, and to have fun while doing so, but it was also designed as a form of community service.

Forget about street sweeping or volunteering to coach soccer, Niemeier has much bigger plans to impact Kennett and the Bootheel as a whole.

The way in which she aims to achieve this is through her stated hypothesis: "An effective, portable, emergency amateur radio station that is not dependent on commercial power can by built to handle emergency information."

The idea of building an emergency communication station originated from Niemeier's participation with the Kennett Middle School Amateur Radio Club. While in the club, she became interested in radio operation, propagation and emergency communications. Her interests in the subjects also led her to become involved in the Bootheel Amateur Radio Club, and to obtain a technician amateur radio license.

For her project, Niemeier collected GPS data on all the major buildings in the Kennett community for FEMA and the fire, police, and sheriff's departments. She also built a low power emergency mobile station with antennas last year.

This year, Niemeier expanded each area of her original work to include the following:

* Obtain a General Class FCC license which allows her to work on all amateur bands.

* Expand her emergency library by collecting ground GPS data on all of the off-system bridges (approximately 112) in Dunklin County for the Missouri Department of Transportation and local emergency responders.

* Become a Skywarn trained observer for the National Weather Service in Memphis, Tenn.

* Add Davis Weather Station which is inspected and approved by the National Weather Service of Memphis.

* Increase her station's power from 5 to 100 watts.

* Add a computer to her emergency station with Rig Expert, an interface to the transmitter that will allow large volumes of data to be stored and sent.

* Build an additional antenna to cover the two meter and 440 bands.

* Test the emergency station.

In conclusion, Niemeier's hypothesis was proven to be true and judges learned that an eighth grader was able to build a working amateur radio station what was not dependent on commercial power.

"I hope that my community, nor any other community, ever has to face the types of problems for which my station was designed," explained Niemeier. "However, should an earthquake, flood, or tornado occur, I will be ready to help."

Because of Niemeier's numerous accomplishments in the Regional Science Fair, including receiving the Top Eighth Grade Student award, she has been selected to participate in the 59th International Science and Engineering Fair in Atlanta, Ga.

Niemeier will receive an all expense paid trip to Atlanta for her and her sponsor, Robert Gill to observe and be apart of the official party of Southeast Missouri's Regional Science Fair.

Niemeier and Daugherty's school is extremely proud of their work.

Principal of KMS, Ward Billings, said "These two young ladies are outstanding academic students and school citizens, and have done a wonderful job of representing our school, the Kennett School District No. 39 and our community."

"Cara and Jill are very intelligent, motivated, respectful and hard-working students. They have made significant contributions to KMS and are highly respected by their peers and staff members," Billings noted. "Cara and Jill are two of the finest students that I have had the pleasure of knowing, and they are certainly two young ladies for whom the future will be grateful."

Additionally, Billings recognized the efforts of Mr. Robert Gill, former KMS staff member and sponsor for Niemeier.

"We are also very thankful for Mr. Robert Gill's efforts and continued involvement in acting as a sponsor for respective students from our school district who are interested in participating in the Southeast Missouri Regional Science Fair," the principal said.

Niemeier will go on to compete in the 59th International Science Fair which will be held, May 11-17, 2008 at Atlanta, Ga.

The 53rd Annual Southeast Missouri Regional Science Fair is scheduled to take place Tuesday, March 10, 2009.