Science Research Students Participate in White Plains Invitational Sophomore Symposium

The White Plains Invitational Symposium/Competition was held this past Saturday afternoon at White Plains High School.  In this competition, sophomore students in science research programs from Westchester County High Schools present their work. This entails the production of a project display which must include the following sections: an abstract, a review of literature,  a hypothesis, methods and materials, and projected results. Each student stands by their display to explain and answer questions about the work. Each display is judged four times by judges, who meet individually with the student.

There were a total of 198 students from schools including but not limited to Scarsdale, Edgemont, Ossining, Yorktown, and  White Plains. Projects were placed into categories based on the branch of science being investigated. A few of the many categories included  Botany, Behavior, Medicine and Health, Computer Programming and Astronomy. In each category, the top three scorers are awarded prizes.

Dr. Lee DiTullio and Mr. Charles Ippolito served as judges at the invitational. Bronxville was very well represented by our five students (Shea Braumiller, Steven Chrappa, Joey Colvin, Nick Capasso, and Basil Sunier).  Nick Capasso was awarded third place in the environmental science category.

First Annual Bronxville Science Reseach Symposium

On Friday, June 4th the Science Research Program held its first annual science symposium in the fireplace room.

The symposium is a platform for the students in the program to present the projects they have worked so diligently to complete in the past year.


The symposium opened with a presentation by Dr. Nicole K. Davi a staff scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University's Tree-Ring Laboratory in Palisades, NY 10964. Dr. Davi was awarded her Ph. D in Physical Geography (Paleoclimatology) from the Department of Geography at Rutgers New Jersey. The presentation described her use of tree rings to trace the periods of drought that have impacted the nomadic peoples of Mongolia.

Following the guest speaker's presentation the current students in the program presented and explained the displays they produced to illustrate the completed work investigating the current knowledge in the topics and how they plan to develop into an original investigation. The displays include anticipated results of their line of inquiry. This work, when completed, will be presented in future symposia and scientific competitions.

This evening was a good "dry" run as all of the students participated the next afternoon in the White Plains Invitational Symposium, where they competed with other sophomores in science research programs in high schools from across Westchester County.