STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) research is a program Northwood offers to engage in independent research. Northwood is proud to be able to provide such a program to facilitate students’ deep interest in the field of science. Students must research, hypothesize and experiment to come up with results that can be presented to the public.
Female zebrafish in the holding tank. Photo: AJ Etumnu ’25.
Christie Nelson’s ’23 project is to “analyze the effects of toxins on the development of zebrafish embryos,” she said. “I thought it would be cool because zebrafish and humans share 70% of the same DNA and 84% of the DNA associated with diseases and toxins, so I thought it would be cool to replicate the effect of toxins on the zebrafish embryos,” Nelson said. Her toxins of choice so far are Tylenol ( Acetaminophen) and caffeine, and early results have shown that 25 milligrams per milliliter of Tylenol in a solution kill zebrafish embryos.
Jazlyn Lluberes’s ’23 project is finding new antibiotics in soil bacteria. Her research pays homage to the first antibiotics produced. “I am following a project called the tiny earth project and Dr. Sarah Shoemaker from North Country Community College is helping me. She isn’t my mentor, but I didn’t know anything about it, so Ms. Walker reached out for help.” Early samples have found three different antibiotics fighting off Bacillus.
Amanda with her prosthetic arm. Photo: AJ Etumnu ’25.
Amanda Nelson ’23 is making a 3D-printed prosthetic forearm that makes gestures when spoken to. Her ultimate goal is to get it to do a handshake or peace sign without external help. She is using an open-source project with the help of Mr. Leblanc and Mr. Martin. “The structure of the arm is built, but when I tried applying the code it blew up, so it’s not quite a success yet,” Amanda said.
