For the first time in school history, three student teams from Plainview-Old Bethpage JFK High School represented Long Island at the New York State Science Congress, earning multiple honors, and one team received a special invitation from judges to tour a research lab.

After the Long Island Science Congress Junior Division selected their projects on April 20 at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, ten students qualified for the state competition. The Long Island sections of the Science Teachers Association of New York State sponsor the competition, and only top projects advance to the statewide event.

On June 7, the New York State Science Congress took place at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. Instead of a science fair, students defended their research before a panel of judges by answering detailed questions about their projects.

Freshman Eden Silverman, 15, of Plainview, said qualifying for the state competition was the result of months of hard work.

“I was extremely excited and so proud of ourselves because we put in so much hard work toward our project,” Silverman said. “It was just a surreal feeling realizing that we accomplished something as big as that.”

Silverman, Gabriella Braico, and Angella Cao studied how different light conditions affect the reproduction of Exaiptasia pallida, an invasive sea anemone species. Their goal was to understand how the species grows and how that knowledge could help protect ocean ecosystems and biodiversity.