Science Starts Here: Annie Bist
Garage comets propel teen to science success
By Amy Mast
Most kids come home from summer camp with bug bites, dirty laundry and a nascent crush. Tallahassee resident Annie Bist came home with a winning idea – but then, she didn’t visit an ordinary camp.
Bist had participated in SciGirls 2006, a multi-stage, hands-on science day camp for middle- and high-school girls. There, the girls met students, educators and science professionals who shared their interest in science. In addition to the science itself, the girls learned investigative and problem-solving techniques with more general applications.
Annie Bist.
SciGirls is a partnership between WFSU, the Magnet Lab, the FSU Saturday at the Sea Program and the Tallahassee Museum that’s made possible through funding from Dragonfly TV and the National Science Foundation. Each site develops activities designed to inspire
girls to consider careers in science. It was one of these demonstrations at the Magnet Lab that inspired what would become Bist’s award-winning science fair project the following year.
Pat Dixon, director of the lab’s Center for Integrating Research & Learning, showed the girls how to use common household materials to create a facsimile of a comet.
"I was just enthralled. It was so cool to see," said Bist. When the time rolled around for her freshman year science fair project, she said, she remembered the demonstration and contacted the Magnet Lab.
Bist connected with Mabry Gaboardi, a graduate research assistant in the lab’s Geochemistry Program, who helped her develop a project. Together, they decided to focus on what makes comets most distinctive – the formation of a tail.
KEY TERM: SUBLIMATION Sublimation is when a solid, frozen material changes to gaseous form. It’s like ice melting directly into steam without the middle, watery stage. A common material that sublimates is dry ice, which Annie used in her experiments.
"Mabry had been telling me that they had been finding comets in the asteroid belt where technically, they’re not supposed to be. One of the hypotheses that had been made as to why they were finding them there was that there had always been comets there, but something was making the comets suddenly sublime so they were showing the tail," Bist explained.
"She said even if there was just a really thin outer layer around those volatiles inside the comet then there would be no tail because that outer layer would be protecting the volatiles from heat."
Bist decided to test whether an impact would take off that outer layer and make the volatiles show, in turn creating a tail. The Magnet Lab lent her a "comet kit" containing basic ingredients and instructions – and Bist set up shop in her garage, cooking up comets in three different sizes for comparison.
After two hours in the family freezer, Bist’s comets were ready. She dropped them on the concrete floor of her garage from a height of 6 feet. Her results weren’t consistent with the size of the comets as she had expected.
"I wanted to see whether they sublimed," she explained. "I found out that most of them didn’t and there was really no definite conclusion that I could make, because one of the smallest comets sublimed, and two of the largest comets sublimed, so it didn’t really make sense."
When Bist took her results to Gaboardi back at the Magnet Lab, she was reassured to learn that some of her research dovetailed with the Magnet Lab’s more sophisticated research and methods.
WHAT IS A COMET KIT?
To make her comet, Annie used:
- dry ice
- soil
- beach sand
- water
- coca-cola
- window cleaner
Because dry ice can be dangerous to use, Annie’s parents supervised her project.
Bist’s project was presented at her school’s science fair, where it was selected for regional competition and then for state. Her experience at SciGirls, she said, motivated her to investigate her project on her own.
"I think SciGirls really opens up your horizon," she said. "At school, maybe you have yourself, and you might be interested in science. And then you have twenty-something other kids, who may be interested, or who may not be. When you come to SciGirls, you have all these people who all love science, and so you have the people who are going to be interested. And the teachers working here can really get in-depth and specific, really open our eyes to what’s out there."
This summer, as a high-schooler, Bist returned to SciGirls with SciGirls II, where she taught the same comet lesson that inspired her project last year to a new, younger group of girls.
You can watch a video presentation of SciGirls 2006 online at http://www.wfsu.org/kids/sci_girls.html.
