第二届年度 STEM 写作比赛的获奖者

科学家和科学作家从哪里得到他们的想法？他们密切关注周围的世界并提出问题，然后寻找最让他们着迷的答案。

至少，这是我们第二届年度STEM写作大赛的前11名获奖者中有多少人描述了他们的过程。与去年一样，我们和我们的合作伙伴《科学新闻》要求世界各地的青少年选择他们感兴趣的任何与STEM相关的问题，概念或问题，并以500字或更少的字数向普通观众解释。 而且，与去年一样，我们在提交表单中添加了一个可选字段，邀请参与者告诉我们他们如何选择该主题。

以下是一些摘录。阅读它们，然后扫描下面获奖论文的标题，看看您是否可以猜出哪些可能与哪个搭配。（答案在帖子底部。

答：“去年，我父亲在修房时摔倒时膝盖严重割伤。虽然伤口很快就用整齐的一排缝合起来，但几天后就出现了感染的迹象。

B.“我碰巧有两只金丝雀。起初，第二个没有一首歌......”

C. “作为一名有抱负的机械工程师，我总是倾向于关注系统和产品，并思考，'我怎样才能做得更好？'”

D.“我一直很喜欢狗，在隔离期间，我和我的狗林戈变得更加亲密。我开始质疑...”

不过，我们希望您能做的不仅仅是扫描。点击链接阅读这些引人入胜的文章全文，您将看到我们的获奖者如何令人印象深刻的将复杂的科学思想——关于雀和长须鲸、海水淡化和痴呆、聚合物和孔雀螳螂虾——转化为不仅信息丰富、易于理解，而且阅读愉快。

2020 年，即该比赛的第一年，有 1，618 名学生提交了参赛作品。今年的参与人数增加了一倍多，达到3，741个参赛作品。我们已经计划第三年举办这项比赛，如果您有兴趣加入我们，那么您最好的办法就是将这些获奖者的作品作为导师文本进行研究——了解如何追随您的好奇心;寻找可靠的研究来源;制作引人入胜的开头段落;使用类比和隐喻来帮助外行人理解一个困难的概念;并尝试声音和风格，让你的文章唱歌。

恭喜11位获奖者、15位亚军和36位荣誉奖，感谢所有送作业的老师和学生，以及许多自愿帮助我们选择的具有STEM背景的评委。

Natalia Araña, age 16, Philippine Science High School, Quezon City, Philippines: “Mycowood Violins: A Different Kind of Time Machine”

Sophie Araten, age 15, Millburn High School, Millburn, N.J.: “Unleash the Tests: The Four-Legged Future of Covid-19 Testing”

Maggie Bell, age 16, Lakeside High School, Atlanta, Ga.: “Dishwashers and Dementia: The Brain System You’ve Never Heard Of”

Jaejeong Kim, age, 17, Hunter College High School, New York, N.Y.: “A Rising Star: These Star-Shaped Polymers May Be Our Last Defense Against Superbugs”

Hoonsun Lee, age 17, Cornerstone Collegiate Academy of Seoul, Seoul, South Korea: “Origami in Space Engineering: Rediscovering the Meaning of Discovery”

Suleiman Mohamed, age 16, British School Muscat, Muscat, Oman: “The Peacock Mantis Shrimp: The Ant-Man of Atlantis”

Nicola Myers, age 17, Boise High School, Boise, Idaho: “And the Grammy Goes to … Fin Whales?”

Erin Rasmussen, age 14, Andover High School, Andover, Mass.: “The World’s Best Quarantiners”

Kelly Shen, age 16, Sacred Heart Schools, Atherton, Calif.: “From Babbling to Birdsong: What Finches Can Teach Us About Vocal Learning”

Dana Steinke, age 16, Saratoga High School, Saratoga, Calif.: “The Motion of the Ocean: Using Sea Waves to Desalinate Seawater”

Jocelyn Tan, age 15, Ridge High School, Basking Ridge, N.J.: “Sleep to Clean: A Prevention of Plaques That Lead to Alzheimer’s Disease”

亚军

Simran Anand, age 16, Crestwood Preparatory College, Toronto, Ontario: “Tiny Heros”

Elizabeth Banzhaf, age 17, Lakeside High School, Atlanta, Ga.: “The Magic of Fireflies”

Varun Fuloria, age 14, The Harker School, San Jose, Calif,: “The Healing Powers of a Deadly Bite — Medicinal Applications of Snake Venom”

Alyssa Kang, age 13, J.H.S. 067 Louis Pasteur, Little Neck, N.Y.: “Eggshells and Tomato Peels: Your Next Set of Tires”

Pooja Kanyadan, age 15, Wheeler High School, Marietta, Ga.: “The Curious Case of Orange Fur: Epigenetics and Its Powerful Role in Gene Expression”

Anna Lehman, age 15, Porter-Gaud School, Charleston, S.C.: “Air Pollution Against Our Global Aviary: An Unacknowledged Attack on Birds Everywhere”

Zheshen Li, age 16, Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science, Princeton, N.J.: “The More You Build, the Worse It Gets: Braess’s Paradox”

Emily Liu, age 17, Northview High School, Duluth, Ga.: “Happy Pills? Emotions and the Search for a Way to Control Them, Starting With Antidepressants”

Evan Lu, age 15, Conestoga High School, Berwyn, Pa.: “Machine-Made Music: How Artificial Intelligence Is Redefining Musical Composition”

Diya Mukherjee, age 15, The Harker Upper School, San Jose, Calif.: “Dying Patients, Dying Transplants: The Potential of Machine Perfusion”

Shivani Patel, age 17, Manhasset High School, Manhasset, N.Y.: “The Role of Cytokines in the Immune System: Friends or Foes?”

Uma Sthanu, age 13, Pearson Ranch Middle School, Austin, Texas: “Eye-to-Eye: How We Receive and Send Emotional Signals Through Our Eyes”

Vanessa Yip, age 15, Cheltenham Ladies’ College, Gloucester, United Kingdom: “Do Animals Grieve?”

Kathleen Zhang, age 17, The Peddie School, Hightstown, N.J.: “Viruses Can Save Lives — The Scope of Oncolytic Virus Therapy”

Yanze Ryan Zhu, age 12, Rumsey Hall School, Washington Depot, Conn.: “The Unexpected Sequela of Coronavirus”

荣誉奖

Brian Caballo, age 17, The Bronx High School of Science, Bronx, N.Y.: “Wintertime Regression and Seasonal Depression”

Camille Campbell, age 16, home-school, Scottsdale, Ariz.: “Making a Martian: Is Tardigrade Genetic Material the Key to Colonizing Mars?”

Sam: “Facial Recognition Is Everywhere”

Isabela: “The Crying Bias: How Preventing Yourself From Crying Might Be Detrimental to Your Health”

Eric Han, age 17, Great Valley High School, Phoenixville, Pa.: “The Issue of Plastic Pollution, and How Bacteria and Engineered Enzymes Are Fighting Back”

Huda Haque, age 17, North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Durham, N.C.: “Time Isn’t Real. So How Do Our Brains Keep Track of It?”

Jisoo Hwang, age 17, Mclean High School, Mclean, Va.: “Two Simple Clicks: A New Solution to Help the Environment”

Robert Igbokwe, age 18, Latin School of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.: “The Shortcut for Slowing Climate Change That We Absolutely Shouldn’t Take”

Celina Jia, age 14, Livingston High School, Livingston N.J.: “The Growing Danger of Antibiotic-Resistant Germs”

Ishika Jain, age 14, Glen Burnie High School, Glen Burnie, Md.: “No Needles Needed: A Plant-Based Oral Vaccine for Rabies”

Sean Kim, age 16, Tenafly High School, Tenafly, N.J.: “Keto: Diet and Cure?”

Kate Kimball, age 17, Coppell High School, Coppell, Texas, and Hana Yang, age 17, Parkland High School, Allentown, Pa.: “Direct Air Capture: A Solution for a Carbon Neutral Future”

Ella Kitt, age 18, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, La Cañada, Calif.: “Pavlov Says Press Like: How Social Media Hijacks Neural Pathways”

Aliya Shahnaz Kraybill, age 15, United World College of Southeast Asia, Singapore: ‘’Thank You for the Music’: “Thank You for the Music”

Pragya Kumar, age 16, Poolesville High School, Poolesville, Md.: “The Truth About Lie Detection”

Saachi Kuthariage, age 16, Millburn High School, Millburn, N.J.: “Bacteria and Yeast Could Be the Future of the Fashion Industry. Here’s How.”

Jeffrey: “Killing Superbugs With … Air? How Singlet Oxygen Can Hold the Line Against Antibacterial Resistant Bacteria”

Richard Lin, age 16, Bellaire High School, Houston, Texas: “Coronavirus Tests and Crime Scene Forensics: The Science Behind the Polymerase Chain Reaction”

Sherry Liu, age 17, North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Durham, N.C.: “The Password You Can Never Forget”

Yumu Liu, age 18, Rancho Solano Preparatory School, Scottsdale, Ariz.: “Skin Hunger”

Nichapatr (Petch) Lomtakul, age 16, Bangkok Patana School, Bangkok, Thailand: “Uncoordinated Ripples: Why You Have a Bad Memory”

Yuhong Lu, age 17, Bellevue High School, Bellevue, Wash.: “Struggling to Memorize? Go Sleep!”

Megan Luong, age 15, Notre Dame High School, San Jose, Calif.: “The Treasure Chest of 21st Century Medicine: Deep-Sea Coral Ecosystems Hold Potential Cures”

Zane Miller, age 18, Garaway Local Schools, Sugarcreek, Ohio: “Human Limb Regeneration Might Not Be Too Far Away”

Abigail Negron, age 16, Jose Marti STEM Academy, Union City, N.J: “Tiny Roommates: The Reality of Where You Sleep”

Ambika Polavarapu, age 17, Millburn High School, Millburn, N.J.: “Maybe Viruses Don’t Have to Be the Bad Guys?”

Mulan Qin, age 17, BASIS International School, Hangzhou, China: “Seeking Light from Darkness”

Cathrine Sakin, age 16, Walter G. O’Connell Copiague High School, Copiague, N.Y.: “Light Pollution and Consequential Nocturnal Pollination Patterns”

Zinuo Wu, age 19, North Cross School, Shanghai, China: “Protein ‘Noodle Soup’: Playing With Disorder in a Rational Biological World”

Eason Yang, age 16, Trinity College School, Port Hope, Ontario: “Farewell to the Pandemic Year: How Does the mRNA Vaccine Function?”

Athena Yeung, age 16, Burlingame High School, Burlingame, Calif.: “CRISPR: The Future in the Fight Against Cancer”

Kate: “The Sweet Lies Behind Artificial Sweetener”

Hyunseo (Cecilia) Yoon, age 14, Seoul International School, Seoul, South Korea: “Notorious App Deepfake Makes Digital Farewell Possible”

Sophia Zhang, age 16, Homestead High School, Cupertino, Calif.: “Human-Produced Noise Pollution Is Now Affecting Bat Hunting Patterns”

Olivia Zhu, age 15, James Madison Memorial High School, Madison, Wis.: “Hydroponics: The Sustainable Way to Feed Everyone Nutritious Food”

Yitian Zhu, age 18, Seven Lakes High School, Katy, Texas: “Metallic Hydrogen: A High-Pressure Oxymoron”

感谢我们所有的评委

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