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West Side Community Center offers after-school program to area students
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
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Mason Harding, 11, a fifth-grade student at Youngstown’s William Holmes McGuffey Elementary School, gets help from his uncle, Justin Harding, on his project, a vortex that mimics a tornado, that Mason will present at the upcoming science fair at Youngstown State University.
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
Photo
A power source that includes a zinc nail, a copper penny and two oranges and two lemons that generated enough power to light a low-energy diode is the project that Walter Woods, 10, will present at the upcoming science fair at Youngstown State University. The McGuffey School fifth-grader is shown here during a session of the after-school science program at West Side Community Center.
YOUNGSTOWN
Kyla Geisel, a Chaney High School sophomore, is a role model and inspiration for younger students enrolled in the West Side Community Center’s West Side Science Success 2 class, the center’s director said.
Kyla, 15, has been entering and winning science fair competitions since the fourth grade.
But last year, she hit the jackpot, and she hopes for more success this year.
Kyla’s project received a superior rating at the 2010 division level science fair at Youngstown State University making her eligible to compete at the state level at Ohio State University.
A superior rating at state earned her a $15,000 three-year renewable scholarship from Ohio Wesleyan University.
Her project, titled “Optical Illusion — Seeing is Believing,” demonstrates if the mind can be tricked with pictures.
But the scholarship wasn’t the only reward.
Her state success opened doors to other opportunities, said Dorothy Leonard, volunteer coordinator of the Science Success program and Kyla’s grandmother.
Kyla has been invited by the People to People Student Ambassador Program to travel to Japan this summer, for which she needs to raise $7,000. She also has been invited to be a student adviser for the Junior Academy of Science Council at OSU.
People to People is a travel service that offers international travel opportunities to middle- and high-school students age 10 through 18.
The center’s science-fair program has received grants for two consecutive years from the Raymond J. Wean Foundation, said Bridget Cramer, director of the West Side center, which is affiliated with Neighborhood Ministries.
Students from McGuffey, Volney Rogers and Chaney schools are participating in the program, which has students in grades five through 12. But West Side Community Center is also working with fourth-graders from Taft and Harding Schools to encourage them to develop an interest in science.
These students will be going to Wilson next year and will then be eligible to enter the science fair, Cramer said.
The objective is to prepare kids to compete in the Youngstown City Schools science fair and then the Ohio Academy of Sciences District 15 Lake-to-River Science Day on March 12 at Youngstown State University’s Beeghly Arena, Cramer said.
“Our goal this year is to take at least 12 kids to district competition and several to the state competition,” Leonard said. Last year, $3 million worth of scholarships were offered to children participating at the state competition.
Other youths in the program besides Kyla are aiming high.
Keirra Harding, who won the spelling bee at McGuffey School this year, is demonstrating a project at YSU in which the fifth-grader altered the number of color bits per pixel in a photo to see how it changed the color.
For her project, Shiree Wilson, also in the fifth grade at McGuffey, put vinegar on raw and fresh eggs to see how it would affect the shells.
Walter Woods Jr.’s project involved using a zinc nail, a copper penny and wiring together two oranges and two lemons, which generated enough power to light a low-energy diode.
“I want to find a cure for cancer,” said the McGuffey fifth-grader. “A lot of people are getting hurt and dying, and I want to stop it.”