Body parts on display at Mariner science night

Mariner Middle students got a close-up view of tiny organisms living in the ocean water, and they were not impressed.

Researcher Chris Main told the students that when someone gets a gulp of ocean water, they are getting a gulp of microscopic organisms. The student response was a universal, “Ew.”

“It's been fun telling them what's in the ocean,” Main said during a Feb. 5 presentation at the middle school that wrapped up months of science research.

Main and other Sea Grant researchers set up hands-on activities for Mariner Middle's annual science night. At another Sea Grant station, 11-year-old Michael Sposato took a look at a live oyster. “I wonder what he's thinking right now,” said Michael, as a researcher pointed out the oyster's brain.

Michael's mother, Karen, enjoyed the demonstrations along with her son. “He's loving it,” she said. “He's a science kid and likes to see how things work.”

Other classrooms featured activities sponsored by local composting company Blessing Blends, Delaware Solid Waste Authority, Envirotech, restaurant Big Fish Grill and a high school community outreach group.

Principal Fred Best said the crowd for science night may have exceeded the number who attended this year's open house. “It's a welcoming environment that keeps building every year,” he said. “We're getting a wave of parents who are more involved.”

Hundreds of parents and students went from room to room, eventually reaching the gymnasium filled with individual science projects created by the school's sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders.

Holly Sugrue, an intensive learning center teacher, said her students enjoyed creating their display on the small intestine. Students stuffed 23 feet of casing with pounds of red-dyed spaghetti to show the role the small intestines play in the digestive tract. Looking similar to an eviscerated zombie in "The “Walking Dead,” half of the intestines hung out of the stomach of a decorated styrofoam torso.

“They thought it was really gross, but it's all in your belly,” Sugrue said.

Brianne Simmons, 13, presented a cell along with her seventh-grade classmates. “I had no idea so many of these were in our bodies,” she said while holding her colorful model of an animal cell complete with mitochondria and other cell properties.

Brianne said she not only learned about cells, she had a great time doing it. “I finished it long before it was due,” she said.

The highlight of the evening was during the awards ceremony when students received special recognition for their projects. Eighth-grader Evan Carrillo won first place for his project on rooftop gardening.

“I got the idea from people I know who have wanted to do it at their home,” he said. Using two garden models, Carrillo said he checked temperatures to show how a rooftop garden can help cool a home. “It really helps keep buildings cool,” he said.

His reasoning, logic and research earned him a place at the Sussex County Science Fair

Mariner Middle science fair winners:

Eighth-grade first place – Evan Carrillo; second place – Amanda Sponaugle and Bella Leishear; third place – George Simmons and Kalen Stevenson.

Seventh-grade winners were: First place – Amanda Silar, Lucy Siranides and Sydney Zych; second place – Hayley Talbot and Sebastian Turman; and third place – Hunter Heck, Sadie Brittingham, Joshua Hall-McBride and Joshua Martinez-Baltazar.

Sixth-grade winners were: First place – Drew Kindl, Lindsay Rambo and Kayla Burkentine; second place – Jake Alt, Austin Holding, Erin Munoz and Madison Elwood; third place – Josey Mulveny, Allen Hopler and Alyssa Tyszko.

Honorable mentions: Matthew Newcomb, Donzell Shamar Snead, Sydney Doel, Destiny Hayes, Hunter Rauch, Hudson Keller, Tyler Husbands, Lucas Gonzalez, Adrian Gonzalez, Samie Jacona, Taylor Lampron, Barrett Enright, Marley Evans, Amber Hennessey, Juliann Webb, Madi Natal, Lenny Williams, Kenneth Miranda, Savannah Sistrunk, Simran Patel, Ronan Dutton, Alan Marin-Quiroz, Ruby Dillard, Jeanae Clark, Cassie Scott, Colby Dominick, Levi Clifton, Chris Gonzalez, Chase Morris, Bryan Ciabattoni, Vicki Stein, Jonathan Capparell, Myles Hazzard, Berenice Baltazar, Seth Workman, Edward Joyce, Ebony Price, Ryan Butler, Taylor Iacono, Morgan Gray, Blaine Doel, Ryan Lammey, Claire Gustafson, Macdiel Vasquez, Hannah Tress, Jalen Myers and Valentine Diaz.