OGDEN – A passion for environmental issues has led to national recognition for Madilyne Beaudry, a freshman at St. Joseph Catholic High School. A science fair project on bioplastics completed last year led to a second-place finish in the Broadcom MASTERS science and engineering competition for middle-school students.
Madilyne took second place in the science category of the STEM Award; winners “demonstrated acumen and promise in science, technology, engineering and math,” according to the announcement by Broadcom.
This is the second year in a row that a St. Joseph student has come in second at this competition, said Kari Lane, a spokesperson for St. Joseph CHS.
This year, because of the pandemic, the competition took place virtually. Madilyne was disappointed to be unable to present at the international middle school science competition, but organizers ensured she and the other participants had a great virtual experience this year, she said.
For the competition, science fair organizers sent equipment to each of the participants to set up a home studio. There they could record their experiences and interact with members of their virtual team, composed of students from across the United States. Judges observed the teams remotely and rated their participation and ethics and interaction, as well as their individual projects.
“I learned that science is very much a skill in itself; it needs communication, and it needs collaboration and it’s not something you can do on your own,” Madilyne said of the experience. “You really need to work with other people and understand that you’re not competing for yourself, you’re competing for the whole stake of the world.”
Madilyne finished the competition as one of the 11 highest scorers. She also placed second in her category and received an all-expenses-paid trip to a summer camp at one of the top colleges in the nation, a $2,500 prize.
“It was an amazing experience for Madilyne,” said her mother, Marsha Merrill. “Although it had to be done virtually instead of traveling due to COVID, I almost think they provided an even better experience and really allowed the kids to bond with the activities that Broadcom put together for them. They got to really focus on the science aspect and in blending and getting to know one another virtually.”
Madilyne submitted her winning project last year, when she was in eighth grade at St. Joseph Elementary. She began working on it in July 2019. Her project, titled “Bioplastic Development; Yielding Lactic Acid Using Compost,” showed that a particular bioplastic could be generated from lactic acid produced by compost. Currently, that bioplastic is being produced commercially from fermented corn and sugar, something that Madilyne doesn’t consider the best use of these resources.
“The corn and sugar mass that you use in order to produce that lactic acid takes a lot out of the environment,” she said. “It’s quite taxing to our fields, and with farming it’s a more viable source of land to be growing food that people can eat.”
Madilyne chose this subject because she is deeply passionate about environmental issues, she said. “It’s very sad for me to see all of the plastic that we end up throwing away constantly.”
Prior to competing in Broadcom MASTERS, Madilyne’s project took second place in the Engineering: Civil & Environmental category in the University of Utah Science and Engineering Fair.
After attending college, Madilyne hopes to become a neural engineer, a biomedical field in which engineering techniques are used to repair, replace or enhance neural systems.
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