The Successful 9th Grade Project

A large part of the success of the Brooklyn Middle School science program can be attributed to long-time educators Bob Plucenik and Jim Bejma.

Plucenik and Bejma are the only science teachers at the school and have for 18 years led the seventh- and eighth-grade general classes to six Best Middle School Performance awards at the Connecticut Science Fair.

"We've always worked well together," eighth-grade science teacher Bejma said. "We feed on each other and stew off each other's ideas."

Students from the school's science program have earned trophies and medals, consistently placing from first to fifth in the state each year. The program has produced three $20,000 Quinnipiac College science scholarship winners, a top prize in the state contest. And in 1999, students Kristen White and Alyssa Languth advanced to the national Discovery ChannelYoung Scientist Challenge in Washington, D.C.

"Somebody should make a movie about us," Plucenik joked as he entered science project scores into a computer. It was the first quiet time Plucenik and Bejma had all afternoon. "It's been a great 18 years."

At the school fair, students stood by three-paneled cardboard backdrops displaying the scientific method of their work to judges who included parents, teachers and administrators. Four finalists, two from each grade, will be chosen for entry into the state science fair March 14.

"Students learn to conduct a bigger project, how to deal with it, and at the end how to explain it," parent Patricia Daley said as she completed judging one entry. "I think the teachers put a lot of themselves into this project."

The science teachers' workload picks up around December, when they begin working overtime to help students with their projects especially for 8th or 9th grade science projects. Plucenik holds a science fair club in the hours before school starts, and Bejma stays after school to do the same.

"We go to school when the sun's down, and we go home when the sun's down," Bejma said.

Jessica Cornman placed first in the state science fair last year in the life science category in 9th grade science projects for her study of the effect of lead pollution on euglena gracilis and daphnia pulex organisms. She is hoping for another shot at the state competition with a project that focuses on the effect of road salt in roadside snow on micro-organisms.

"They put a lot of detail into everything they do," Cornman said of her science teachers. "They expand on everything they do. Everybody usually ends up understanding it."

Brooklyn Middle School Principal Matthew Carroll said the community has been supportive of the science program, which receives about the same amount of money as other departments. But he attributed the school's science prowess directly to Bejma and Plucenik.

"They bring real excitement and creativity of what they do, and it's contagious," Carroll said.

Middle school usually is the last chance students have to indulge their skills because interest in science usually drops off in high school as students are typically left to their own devices.

"The advisors there understand what it takes for novel research," Wisner said. "They share it with the students and the students run with them."

Students who stick with science are becoming professional scientists in adulthood. Former Brooklyn Middle School science standout Rene Lantry, 25, returned to campus to judge this year's fair projects. Lantry is a cancer toxicology researcher with the ImClone company and is working on a master's degree in biology at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, N.J.

"I've always been really into it," Lantry said. "It was exciting to participate in the science fairs because it goes to show you that when schools invest a lot in science education in students early on, it does impact them later on. Teachers really influence your life path."

Four finalists from the 17th Annual Brooklyn Science Fair will be determined today.