Even Computers Can Be Science Project Ideas

Instead of just hanging out for three months with her friends, teenager Tahira Boyd spent all of last summer experimenting with chicken eye lenses in a laboratory at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center. She didn't get paid for her work, and she didn't get school credits toward her senior year at Kenwood Academy.

The payoff came Sunday, when Tahira was named one of the top three exhibitors at the 40th Student Science Fair for Computer Science Projects, earning a trip to an international science fair next month. Tahira earned another distinction as well. She became only the second student in the history of the Chicago Public Schools science fair to earn the top honor four times in Computer Science Projects, according to Jerry Hayes, executive chairman for the fair.

Tahira, who has entered the fair every year since 6th grade, won with a project titled "Monoclonal Characterization of Lens Protein." To those who read the title and responded, "Huh?", Tahira was able to explain that the purpose of the research was to study the aging process by looking at eye tissue. Her work developed a new research tool for studying protein and aging.

"She spent a lot of her own time doing this, in the summer and after she gets home from school. She really puts in a lot of hours," said Tahira's mother, Carletta Boyd, an optometrist, who Tahira credits with initiating her interest in health and science.

Tahira, who is waiting to hear if she has been accepted at Stanford University, said she puts in all those hours because she enjoys doing it, "not for the awards. But I still get nervous (on awards day)."

Approximately 300 Chicago Public School exhibitors and their families crowded Sunday into an auditorium at the Museum of Science and Industry, where 45 high school students and 15 elementary school students were selected to represent Chicago at the state science fair in Champaign, May 18-19. These final 300 exhibitors were selected from approximately 10,000 students who competed in district science fairs throughout the city.

The top three students were selected to participate in the International Science and Engineering Fair in Tulsa, May 6-12.

Joining Tahira in Tulsa will be Prashant Bhargava, another senior at Kenwood Academy. Prashant also is a science fair veteran, doing projects on fruit flies and then comparing diets in India and the U.S. before switching to computers.