Mahopac Students Take Prizes in Science Competition

A more nutritional egg and a better hair-care product may be on the horizon thanks to two Mahopac High School students. The two students won awards in the Westchester Science and Engineering Fair competition at Sleepy Hollow High School on March 15. 

Samantha Hackett won the competition's prestigious Fisher Award for her study of the effects of the nutritional value of a chicken egg when the hen is exposed to a 27-hour day. She used a schedule of 14 hours of light and 13 hours of dark, instead of a typical 14 light, 10 dark. The 27-hour group had a vitamin A increase of 19.6 percent, while the control group had an increase of 1.2 percent cholesterol and 0.10% more of polyunsaturated fat.

"I've raised ducks and hens," Samantha said, "and I wanted to see if giving them more rest would create a more nutritional egg." Samantha, who wants to be a large-animal vet after college, found that it did.

Mikaela DiBello earned third place in chemistry in the competition for her work on altering the chemistry of popular hair-care products to create a better beauty-balm type of cream and cleansing  conditioner. She was able to create a product that was more effective in increasing the manageability of hair and a cleansing conditioner that was equal in performance with other products already on the market.

"I love chemistry and wanted to apply it to everyday life," said Mikaela, who would like to study chemistry or medicine in college.

"All of our students worked tirelessly preparing for the competition, " said their teacher Jennifer Degyl, who worked with students along with fellow science teachers Elizabeth Stephens and Dennis Quackenbush.

Mahopac High School’s Science and Technology Research course enables students to perform authentic, original independent scientific research. The students will compete next in the Tri-County Science & Technology Fair on April 26th at White Plains High School.

WESEF allows the best high school science research students in Westchester and Putnam counties to present their multi-year projects to professional researchers in the area.