Check out the student work submitted for real-world industry feedback! Learn more about submitting student work to receive real-world feedback here!

Grade: Middle School

Program: OpenSciEd

Project overview: Animals, such as bears, can do the same chemical reactions as humans do to get energy from food to use now, to use for growth, or to store for later.  This project explores the phenomenon of bear hibernation.

Select student submission materials:

Link to example of full project: click here

Select Judge Feedback: “Hi I work in oncology drug discovery at Flagship Pioneering. Thank you so much for letting me read your project – it was great!

I liked the model you presented, it accurately represented the biology and how the flow of food in through ingestion is turned into macronutrients and subsequently into fat for storage all while expelling CO2. You also went even further in the project and suggested 2 very related reasons for why the bears were gaining weight; human intervention and not hunting for their food. I think these are probably the most likely reasons they are so much heavier.

I am a scientist and we actually have used bears as an example of inspiration for some of our work – specifically because they can retain more muscle mass than humans do if humans were to stop eating. If you’re interested, one main reason why is because bears have an ability to recycle nitrogen where humans can’t so we’ve investigated creating a therapeutic that can do this.

I hope projects like this keep you excited about science – we need more young people excited by science! Thank you for letting me judge your work, great job!”

-Flagship Pioneering

“Hello, I work for Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. I have a major in biochemistry and I work as a Lab Operations Lead. Lab Operations lead is a fancy way of saying I help make sure the lab runs smoothly. It means even if I don’t do the actual scientific work in the lab, I need to be able to understand and explain what the scientists are doing so that I can then explain what the scientists need to other teams like Facilities, Safety, and IT. This means I have broad knowledge of different aspects of the company, but it also means I am very good at communication and presentations. Making sure people understand what everyone else is trying to say is a big part of my job. Science jargon, IT jargon, and Safety jargon are all different and it is my job to act as a translator between all of these different departments.

In reading the answer in your first question, I really liked how you referenced the chart above. Any scientist will tell you how important data is in proving a hypothesis. Backing up your theories with facts is a great habit to start building and you are doing it here very well. I think you could have done something similar in section 3. When you talk about how the energy is expelled you can reference your very cute bear model above. An example of this could be when you say “When an animal burns fat it is turned into carbon dioxide,” you could add something like, this can be seen in the model above, the key on the right can help you identify the CO2 and shows how it was created from the bear breaking down the stored fat. Great job, and your flower holding bear brought me great joy.”

-Operations Lead, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals

Industry Award: Top OpenSciEd Award

School: Albert F Ford Middle School

Teacher:  Christopher Saulnier