By Christina Leslie | Staff Writer

Students from two Diocese of Trenton Catholic schools are among a select group of young scientists who have qualified for national recognition for their ingenuity and persistence. Eighth graders from St. Dominic School, Brick, and two teams of sixth graders from All Saints Regional Catholic School, Manahawkin, have turned their expertise in Hurricane Sandy relief, turtle behavior and germs into projects earning them U.S. savings bonds and awards in the annual eCybermission web-based competition sponsored by the U.S. Army.

The eCybermission is a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) competition for sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth grade student teams. The three- or four-member teams are encouraged to identify a community problem or “mission challenge” and work as a team to solve it by doing research, forming a hypothesis and conducting experiments. The program offers teams the opportunity for virtual consultation with STEM professionals who volunteer for the competition.

Upon completion, the multi-media projects are submitted to the Army program administered by the National Science Teachers Association and one team per grade level per state is chosen. Student winners are awarded U.S. Savings Bonds, and selected first-place teams move on to a regional competition to compete against others in their grade. The final set of winning teams compete at the national level and receive an all-expenses paid trip to the national judging event taking place the third week of June in Leesburg, Va.

“We decided to make a negative into a positive,” declared St. Dominic School teacher Eric Schwarz about the team of eighth grade competitors he and fellow teacher Robert Zolkiewicz advised from the Brick school. The quartet of W.I.L.D.C.A.T.S. (an acronym for “when information lacks during catastrophic and terrible storms”) – Mark Dobin, Amaya Escandon, Peter Macron and Bryan Romanow -- remembered the difficulties area residents faced in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and designed an app for cell phones which listed important telephone numbers and resources for food, shelter, electricity and other community services.

The W.I.L.D.C.A.T.S. won top national honors for eighth grade teams and placed in the top four in the northeast region. Each student was awarded a $1,000 savings bond.

The reproductive habits of shore-area terrapins were the subject of All Saints Regional Catholic School’s “Turtle Teachings” team which garnered second place in the eCybermission’s national sixth grade competition.  Post-Sandy, area naturalists discovered the turtles’ nests in Tuckerton had been flooded or ravaged by other animals, resulting in fewer successful turtle hatchings.

The team of Alexa Fritz, Kailey Matthews and Belle Weimer, advised by ASRCS teacher Angela Weimer, spoke with area naturalists, compared soil samples near the nests and sought ways to save prematurely-hatched turtles from starving.

The girls took home a number of the turtles to nurture until a late-May release in the wild, reported Weimer, and raised funds for their four-legged friends. “They made ‘turtlegrams’ to deliver to students as birthday gifts,” the teacher said, describing the turtle-shaped chocolates, trading cards with turtle statistics and a prayer of St. Francis all tucked into a biodegradable box. The girls won second-place in the nation amongst other sixth graders for their work, earning a $500 savings bond each, and raised about $400 during the turtlegram project which will be used for new “Watch the turtle” crossing signage on Tuckerton’s Great Bay Boulevard.

Fellow ASRCS sixth graders Andrew Beck, Jack Healy, Christopher Marinelli and Mark Motsch, led by teacher Marlene Motsch, saw their bacteria-ridden electronic devices lead them to a first-place finish in the contest. Their “iGerms” project detailed how the four boys swabbed their classmates’ iPads then identified the colonies of bacteria which grew on petri dishes. The teammates analyzed whether water, anti-bacterial or non-antibacterial cleaners worked best to clean the devices, then created their own cleaner from four common household ingredients.

The team and their advisor will travel to Leesburg by train and will enjoy a full slate of activities in addition to the contest.

Each team of competitors will give a five-minute project presentation to eCybermission judges followed by a 10-minute Q & A session. A national showcase for their families follows, and they will learn during a June 20 banquet whether they will finish first in the nation in the annual contest and win a grant to implement their project.