Brooklawn Students Advance to Semifinals of National Science Competition

Most students wait for Fridays with baited breath. For three Brooklawn Middle School students, this Friday, April 25, could change their young lives.

Siddhanth Patel, Adam Warner and Jay Patel are one step closer to seeing hard work and theories become real, tangible items, as their science project entered into the Christopher Columbus Awards has been placed into the annual competition’s semifinal round.

More than 850 students and coaches participated in the national competition. The trio of Parsippany residents focused on the use of bio-plastics to replace traditional plastic in the production of products, notably shopping bags, according to their teacher and advisor Joshua Weinstein.

By conducting local research, the students set off to determine if their idea was not only feasible scientifically, but also economically. In doing so, they challenged themselves to correlate the need for greener products and the needs of the companies who would purchase them, Weinstein said.

On Friday, April 25, eight of the 30 semifinalist teams will be named winners of an all-expense-paid trip to the Walt Disney World Resort. There they’ll compete in the Christopher Columbus Award’s National Championship from June 8 to 13.

If the team wins, each member will receive $2,000 and a $25,000 Columbus Foundation Community Grant to help bring its idea to life in the community.