SHS’s Weber taking project to national science symposium

Published 2:00 am Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Sequim Gazette staff

Sean Weber, a freshman at Sequim High School, was selected to represent Washington at the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, held from April 27-30 in Dayton, Ohio.

Weber will present a poster of his award-winning project, “Designing a Luminosity Meter to Detect Toxins Using Bioluminescence.”

He is one of five Washington high school students to receive an all-expenses paid trip to this two-day annual event.

This national competition is sponsored by the Academy of Applied Science for the United States Army Research Office, the Office of Naval Research and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Weber was selected as one of 16 finalists from a total of 56 professionally formatted research papers that were submitted to the Washington Junior Science and Humanities Symposium.

As a finalist, Weber was required to stand and deliver his project to an audience of 106 students, parents, teachers and judges on March 11 at Seattle Pacific University. His selection to attend the national symposium was based on his research paper, presentation and response to questions from the judges.

Weber’s project involved using bioluminescence as a generic toxin detector, to create an inexpensive, portable luminosity meter for measuring light changes from bioluminescent sources exposed to toxins.

The final design included a dark test chamber, air agitation, digital camera with large aperture macro-lens and laptop plus software (Helicon Remote, MathCad, Excel and Photoshop). The process involved introducing bioluminescent organisms into the test chamber.

Weber developed this project as a member of the Sequim Science Fair Club as an eighth-grader at Sequim Middle School.

He entered his project last year in the Washington State Science Fair and, among his many honors, he was awarded the C.J. Croswaite Washington State Science Student of the Year for grades 7 and 8.

He was guided by Debra Beckett, science teacher and advisor for the club; Ron Tognazzini, mentor and retired engineer; Dr. Eric Crecelius, mentor and retired research scientist; Mary Omberg, mentor and retired science teacher; high school student Ashley Baltrusitis, and parents Dr. Asma Weber and Dr. Carl Weber.