Browse real student projects, abstracts, and awards.
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are chemical compounds widely used in consumer products and industrial applications, this contamination has ties to severe health risks such as ca…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Wastewater Injection is the practice of injecting leftover wastewater from industrial practices such as fracking and liquid and gas extraction operations underground. With the rise of these…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Smoke plumes produced by wildfires pose a threat to public safety. However, a lack of accurate real-time information on smoke plumes provided by current methods like satellite imagery leaves…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
The UN recently reported on its global effort to improve access to clean and affordable drinking water, an issue made worse by changing climate patterns and poor wastewater infrastructure. O…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences Third Award
The tropical climate of Darwin, Northern Territory of Australia, is notorious for unbearable temperatures exceeding 32C (90F) daily. Often felt in indoor environments, this leads to heat exh…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Endophytes are a diverse group of fungi that can have a profound impact on plants in either a beneficial or detrimental way. They can have a symbiotic relationship with the host plants, or t…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
The impact of the main inactive ingredient in sunscreens was tested on freshwater ecosystems using Daphnia magna as a model species. My previous experiments (2023) showed that "reef-friendly…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Environmental toxicity in the soil is a glaring issue due to its detrimental impacts on surrounding ecosystems, human health, and the economy. My investigation studied the toxicity levels of…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Water pollution poses a significant threat to aquatic ecosystems and human health. Sometimes chemical pollutants force algae to grow unstoppably and produce toxins, such as microcystin. Cert…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
The development of this project involves the utilization of 3D modeling platforms like Unity 3D, augmented reality, and the integration of QR codes with smartphones and computers to enhance…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Plastic pollution affects the world: land, water, and air. It may take up to 500 years for certain types of plastics to biodegrade in the environment. This can be especially harmful to the b…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences Second Award
To combat marine biotoxin contamination that threatens California’s $15-million shellfish industry, this research establishes the first California Marine Biotoxin Management System (CABMS),…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Artificial light at night (ALAN) can disrupt wildlife seasonal phenology. Many animals produce melatonin, a hormone regulating circadian rhythms, in the dark. ALAN, especially from cool whit…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Increasing pollution in large water bodies poses a significant threat to the availability of safe drinking water. As pollutants (surfactants) decrease interfacial tension, when a contaminant…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences Fourth Award
Planetary biodiversity is declining at alarming rates. Species conservation depends on knowing what species are present in an environment and in what quantities. A keystone species in Alaska…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Sustainable urban planning is essential to the future of cities and the harmony of humans and the environment. Increased urban infrastructure creates more area of impermeable surfaces, leadi…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
This investigation addresses clean water insufficiency in marginalized communities by exploring the viability of natural materials for water filtration. It was determined whether different r…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Cleaning oil spills is a significant problem, especially in open-water systems. Many current remediation methods are expensive, not entirely effective, or are more detrimental to the environ…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
The late 20th and early 21st centuries have been marked by significant global climate change resulting in many environmental disasters. Specifically, the recent increase in both frequency an…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
With water playing a fundamental and irreplaceable role in everyday life, water quality monitoring is crucial for preserving the aquatic ecosystem and ensuring a sustainable planet for the f…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences Third Award
This research addresses the widespread issue of drinking water contamination in resource-constrained areas. We propose using cost-effective multiparameter microfluidic chips to assess water…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences Second Award
Oil spills continue to affect millions of families yearly. Significant research has gone into the development of both organic and inorganic solvents. However, the issue with these sorbents i…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Biodiversity contributes to ecosystem stability and provision of favorable living conditions. One approach to increase biodiversity involves implementing restoration activities, such as burn…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
As a result of climate change and sea level rise, low lying areas in the Pacific are vulnerable to saltwater intrusion: the movement of saline water into freshwater. This increases the soil’…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Many row crop fields are near highways, dirt roads, and section lines. This leaves the crops at risk for being contaminated by pollutants from road runoff. The purpose of our project was to…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
The heavy metals lead (Pb), copper (Cu), and zinc (Zn) cause an alarming combination of environmental and health problems (Zheng ,2023). Using the Eichhornia crassipes plant, a hyperaccumula…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Biofuels are critical in combating the global climate crisis while providing increasing energy security. However, the current application of biofuels solely emphasizes the utilization of Bio…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Less than 1% of the Earth’s water, a nonrenewable resource is accessible as fresh water to us. Global warming, industrialization and exponential growing human population is exacerbating food…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
This research was undertaken to study the behaviour and the use of different habitats by juvenile fishes within the shallow areas of Algoa Bay. Although some researchers have studied the sha…
ISEF · 2024
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Geological deposits, volcanic activity, and weathering, along with mining, agriculture, and manufacturing are some of the many ways copper gets into waterways. Copper is one of the most toxi…