What started out as a school project has turned out as a stack
of prizes and a chance at even more for 13-year-old Joey Edgar.
What started out as a school project has turned out as a stack of prizes and a chance at even more for 13-year-old Joey Edgar.
The Martin Murphy Middle School seventh-grader took home first place in the environmental science category at the Synopsys Science and Technology Championships. Essentially a gigantic countywide science fair, the event was held at the McEnery Convention Center March 16. More than 800 students competed for prizes from local businesses and organizations who judged the competition.
Edgar discovered his good fortune April 4 after at an awards ceremony held at Great America, where he also became the Judges’ pick of Underwriter Laboratories Inc., a Santa Clara company that helps manufacturers conform their products to government safety standards.
So, on top of a bevy of school supplies and other goodies for winning first place, Underwriter Labs handed Joey $100 to spend at his will.
Edgar was surprised that what started out as an everyday school project has turned out so well. Though he enjoys science, it’s not his primary focus. He also works hard at Tae Kwon Do at the United Academy of Martial Arts and plays clarinet for the Martin Murphy Middle School band.
“The funnest part about the whole thing was winning all this cool stuff,” said Edgar. ‘I’m just surprised that it’s come so far.”
Edgar’s science project started when he was playing video games and wondered if his gaming console exposed him to electromagnetic energy, which all electrical devices produce in some quantity. So dad Don Edgar bought Joey a gaussmeter to measure EMF (electromagnetic fields) and the two set out across town taking measurements.
What Edgar found next surprised him. While his gaming console produces a minimal level of EMF, all sorts of power lines and large transmission towers give off higher, more risky levels of EMF and their fields cover larger areas. After some diligent research into past scientific articles, Edgar found that there is a very weak association with a high level of EMF and childhood leukemia. When the dust settled, Edgar had his award-winning project ‘Electromagnetic Fields in daily life: Understanding exposure and risk levels.’
It was that high caliber research that made Edgar so successful here in Santa Clara County, and what may take him even further in the topsy-turvy world of school-age science competition.
Edgar is one of 400 semifinalists from around the country entered in the Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge 2004. Participants must have won a qualifying regional science fair and complete a 500 word summary of their project. If Edgar is selected as one of the 40 finalists, he will receive an all-expense paid trip to the competition in Washington D.C.
“The hardest part was doing all the research and actually understanding EMF,” said Joey. “But it didn’t seem too hard, and now I might be going to Washington. That’s cool.”
For now though, Edgar will have to sit tight and wait for the results to come in.
To learn more about the Synopsys Science and Technology Challenge, visit their website at www.science-fair.org, or to learn more about the Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge, go to www.sciserv.org/dysc
