By Eric Maddy
The SCORE

In just a minute, I want you come back and click here to read the list of outstanding students who won awards at the Rio Rancho High School Fall Expo last week.

But before you do, I want you to read this disclaimer:

I hate these kids. I really do.

You knew kids just like this in high school, too. They were the science nerds who walked around with pocket savers and glasses, acting smug because they thought they were superior to us normal folks.

The problem is they were smarter than we were. We knew it, and they knew it. We hated them for it. They knew we hated them for it, and didn’t care.

I’ll bet you can still name those kids from your high school. I know I can. I don’t want to identify them, though, for two reasons:

1.I’ve got a class reunion coming up.

2.Most of them turned out to be pretty decent people, actually.
 
Oh, they’re still science nerds. They grew up to be doctors, scientists, engineers. Only now they’re making mega-bucks to talk that science language that I still don’t understand.

The closest I came to science was being an aide for a biology teacher in the 10th grade. Really, my only job was to make sure that the film projector was working correctly.

I got a half-credit for this hazardous duty. It was, after all, a temperamental projector that liked to eat movies like teenagers like to eat pizza – anytime, anyplace, hot or cold.

That being said, I entered the Rio Rancho High gym last Friday full of trepidation, all my science insecurities bubbling near the surface. And, much to my chagrin, these kids didn’t make me feel any smarter.

I talked to Kelly Pavers, a sophomore, in Booth 38. Her exhibit title caught my eye: Body Image and the Media. Since I am in the media and have a lousy body, I hoped she had some answers for me. Instead, her project talked about how teen girls react to peer pressure created by all those models we see on TV and in magazines.

I talked to Jesse Ardis in Booth 208. He wondered if colored light would make plants grow faster then natural light, since red light had the longest wavelength. To his surprise – and mine – natural light won out, beating out red, blue and green, in that order. Normal light was 90.5, red 80.4, blue 80.1 and green 70.4, but I was too fascinated by the premise that I forgot to write down if that was inches of growth, a percentage or just what the numbers meant.

Junior Cameron Weaver in Booth 37 had a project that saddened me. It is listed in the program as “The World’s Biggest Holocaust,” but being a sensitive young man he had a different title on display. He looked at the number of African slaves who never a chance to be called African American because they died in captivity on the crowded transports ships. His estimate: 500,000 to 27 million. Interesting, painful research, to be sure.

Rachel Lopez, who went to the national competition last year, continued her project with “Ghost Nets: Biodegradable or Not? Phase II.” The sophomore is hoping to find a yucca plant that could be used in fishing lines and nets that, if left in the sea, would rot away and not trap innocent marine life. She said she got the idea from a teacher, Terry Lynn Vigil. By the time I left, I almost felt guilty for liking to fish.

Another girl who went to nationals last year is Megan Johnson, who is in Phase IV of her research on “The Best Learning Styles.” Her survey of 432 students, ages eight to 18 in the district, asked 30 questions designed to look at left-brain vs. right brain learning styles. As a former teacher, I was fascinated by the results and wish I had some of this when I was in the classroom. Some college, or perhaps the school district itself, needs to fund this research further.

Gabriel Shipley, Booth 432, looked at the saturations of various household items in water and how it might affect our oceans and global warming. Mercedes Reuel gave me hope for the future by displaying how manure and grass might be converted into fuel one day, funding lab work out of her own pocket. I had to get her to spell “gas chromatograph” for me.

Brothers Vaughn and Ford Carty, a freshman and sophomore, had a project titled: “Na Tolerance and Productivity of Lipid-Producing Diatoms – New Forms of Energy and Economics for the Neo-Permian Basin.” If the good folks in Hobbs can figure out how to make this one work, it could be boom time again. Me, I had enough trouble figuring out the title.

At the last booth I stopped at, Andrew Abernathy scared the hell out of me. By mixing various bacteria, he was trying to create a new strain that might grow resistance to a specific antibiotic. It dawned on me that if this kid ever hooked up with Osama bin Laden that we’d all be in deep E-coli.

Fortunately, by this time event organizers called for a lunch break, with the presenters due to be back in an hour to open the Expo to the public. This allowed me to escape before my head exploded from the new information I’d learned in the past 90 minutes or so. It was almost like studying for a final exam again.

I write this column, tongue firmly planted in cheek, nearly a week later. But I also want to offer my congratulations to everyone who makes this event possible – the sponsors, teachers, parents and judges.

And to the students who participated, I offer this serious message:

In your career, you will no doubt run into people who are jealous of your abilities. You’ll be called nerds, pencil-pushing geeks. The “cool kids” will look down on you, and others won’t understand you.

But don’t let that stop you. Don’t quit. Keep going. Keep pushing the envelope. You are our salvation, our future, our hope.

Besides, it’s a week later and my ego is back intact. And I’ll bet you I can fix a movie projector faster than you can.