On February 28, members of the Growing Up at the Aquarium project once again found themselves among the winners of the regional stage of the V.I. Vernadsky All-Russian Contest of Student Research Projects, this time in the middle school and high school age groups. As usual, the Contest took place at the N.N. Dubinin School for Gifted Children.
There was a total of 70 young participants from across Primorsky Krai (Vladivostok, Nakhodka, Fokino and other places).
Artem Vinogradov took part in the contest among middle school students (aged 11 to 7th grade), called “V.I. Vernadsky's Path of Discovery”, and won it with his presentation “Studying the Influence of Musical Instruments on Spotted Seals (Phoca largha) Living at the Marine Mammal Research Station”.
Elena Krivoshei took third place in the competition for senior school age group (8th-11th grades). Her research “Preparing an Experiment to Demonstrate the Process of Extrapolation in Spotted Seals (Phoca largha)” explores spotted seals’ cognition: their attention, concentration, memory, and the ability to predict the location of an object in space. The experiment is carried out in the form of the classic shell game: an object (from a variety of different objects used) is placed under one of three buckets and they are then shuffled by the researcher. The seal needs to remember the location of the object and predict where it is after the buckets are moved. It is worth noting that the research of this kind has never been conducted before.
Both Elena and Artem are going to give their presentations at the conference of young scientists on Sakhalin Island later this month. And Artem Vinogradov, as the regional winner, is flying to Moscow to compete for victory in the national finals of the Vernadsky Contest in April.
“Artem Vinogradov has been with us for four years now,” said Elizaveta Roshkolaeva, Lead Specialist of the Education Department. “I believe he’s accumulated enough experience which helped him take first place in his age group, even though there were about 15 children there. As for Lena, she is a 10 grader and only joined the Growing Up at the Aquarium’s team this year. She is happy with her result, but we didn't quite have time to complete her project. If we had, I’m sure she would have taken first, too. But Lena is full of enthusiasm and we are already planning our participation next year. Artem is also eager to dive deeper into the musical abilities of spotted seals.”
Today, 12 children aged 8 to 17 are conducting their own studies under the guidance of experienced mentors at the Researcher stage of the Growing Up at the Aquarium project. These kids are dealing with a variety of rather complex topics related to marine biology, from understanding the cellular composition of mollusks and algae to reconstructing Jurassic-era biotopes. For many of the students, this experience is a first step toward new scientific discoveries and maybe a natural science career.
