Paschal Science Wins Saginaw Invitational 

The Science Team won first place Saturday at the UIL B competition. Senior Mark Moses placed first in Chemistry and Sophomores Zach Jacobus and Olivia Castillo placed first and second individually for underclassmen. Congrats on such an outstanding performance!

Two Seniors Present Research in Far West Texas!

Paschal High School seniors Mark Moses and Coleman Odom traveled to Sul Ross State University this past weekend in Alpine, Texas. They presented research posters at the Texas Herpetological Society Fall Symposium. The only high school students in attendance, all other presenters were graduate students or professional biologists! 

Mark Moses coauthored a poster with science teacher Andrew Brinker that documented movement in the Clear Fork of the Trinity River between recaptures. The results supported the literature on home range and movement between sexes and age classes. The average movement was 674 meters for recaptured males and 433 meters for recaptured females. Large males moved the most at 808 meters between recaptures whereas small females moved the least at 204 meters between recaptures. 

Coleman Odom coauthored a poster with TCU graduate student Shelly Wu and Paschal science teacher Andrew Brinker that identified 8 different taxa of diatoms in fecal samples of red-eared sliders. The education department at the Botanical Research Institute of Texas allowed Paschal to borrow a portable scanning electron microscope for a week. During that time several students and teachers used the microscope, and Coleman was able to use it for this research project. 

After the symposium was over, the students traveled to Big Bend National Park for a field trip. At the park students were able to find and photograph the rare Big Bend Slider along with loggerhead shrikes and cactus wrens. After a five mile hike down the window trail the students returned to the Davis Mountains State Park where they camped for the symposium. 

Congratulations to these students for such an outstanding accomplishment!

Thank you to the TCU Andrews Institute of Mathematics and Science Education for funding this innovative educational project. Thank you to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for scientific research permits. Thank you to Tarrant Regional Water District for permits to conduct this research downtown Fort Worth on the Trinity Trails. Thank you to BRIT and Hitachi for providing the students with an opportunity to work with the scanning electron microscope. Thank you to FWISD and Paschal High School for supporting this educational adventure. 

The Paschal UIL Science Team won the Regional Championship at the University of Texas at Arlington April 13th. These academic athletes will advance to the STATE competition in Austin. 

From the left Thu Pham, Mark Moses, Andy Ryu and Alex Castillo.

Congratulations to the Paschal Science Team for winning the District Championship for the 18-19 school year! Thu Pham finished in first place overall, while Andy Ryu placed in second place and Mark Moses placed fifth. Andy Ryu also won the Biology Championship. 

The 2019 District Team was: Andy Ryu, Thu Pham, Mark moses, Alex Castillo, Kelley Briggs and Taha Sharaf! Region will be hosted by UTA on April 13th, with winners advancing to STATE in Austin!

Twelve science club members traveled to San Antonio March 15 and 16th for the Texas Math and Science Coaches Association annual meet. After an evening on the River Walk students spent the following day competing in both math and science events (Penta club was also well represented). When the dust settled, we were proud of a 6th place finish out of 35 teams in the 6A division. We will be competing for a second consecutive District Championship on March 30th. 

Students in front of the Alamo: 

Students enjoying dinner on the San Antonio River Walk:

Students studying just prior to the competition:

Senior Katherine Faulkner presented her research on diatoms (microscopic algae that are indicators of water quality) at the Fort Worth Regional Science Fair Monday February 25th. Katherine was awarded first place by the Association of Women Geoscientists and second place by the American Meteorological Society.

Thank you to mentor Shelly Wu and the TCU's Andrews Institute of Mathematics and Science Education for all of their support. 

Wednesday February 20th, four Paschal Science Club students presented their research at the Fort Worth Sierra Club meeting. Senior Katherine Faulkner discussed her research on diatoms (algae) living on the carapace of turtles. Junior Mark Moses talked about turtle recaptures and movement in the river. Juniors Nick Etheridge and Jake Harper discussed how they were able to determine the mercury concentrations in turtles with help from TCU Biology professor Dr. Chumchal. Thanks to the Sierra club for inviting us to speak! 

Photos by John MacFarlane and Shelly Wu

Eight members of the Paschal Science Club traveled to OD Wyatt January 19th to compete in an academic competition. The team won first place and we had multiple individual awards including: 

1st place: Andy Ryu

2nd place: Mark Moses

4th place: Thu Pham

5th place: Alex Castillo

7th place: Emma Ferry

Congratulations to these outstanding students!

Senior Katherine Faulkner is only the second Paschal student to receive an invitation to the Texas Junior Science & Humanities Symposium. The Texas Junior Science & Humanities Symposium promotes original research and experimentation in the sciences, engineering, and mathematics at the high school level, and publicly recognizes students for outstanding achievement. Texas JSHS provides an opportunity for Texas high school students to present the results of their original research in a professional arena. Katherine's research paper was "The Environmental Implications of the Fossil and Contemporary Diatoms of Royal, Nebraska". Diatoms are a type of algae that are considered keystone species in aquatic ecosystems as they makeup the base of the food chain. Diatoms are also used as indicator species to help determine water quality. The advisor and mentor on this research project was Shelly Wu, a PhD student at TCU and expert in diatoms. Congratulations to Katherine for this outstanding research!

Two Students are Semifinalists in Olympiad!

 As the premiere biology competition for high school students in the United States, the USA Biology Olympiad (USABO) enriches the life science education of nearly 10,000 talented students annually. It provides the motivation, curricular resources, and skills training to take them beyond their classroom experience to the level of international competitiveness.

 Holley Anderson and Andy Ryu were chosen based upon their Open Exam Scores as semifinalists and recently completed the second round of the competition. Ultimately 20 students are chosen to attend a training at University of California at San Diego, with the top four traveling to Tehran, Iran from July 15 to 22, 2018 representing the United States. 

The District UIL Science competition was this past weekend March 24th. Paschal won first place as a Team and Andy Ryu won first place individual overall and biology. 

More than 1,100 students and 200 teams from across Texas competed on Sunday with the winners of each District advancing to Regionals. Paschal will compete at UTA on April 14th in hopes of making it to Austin in May for the State competition. Congratulations to these scientific gurus. 

A collaboration between TCU graduate student Shelly Wu and Paschal students Katherine Faulkner and Taha Sharaf resulted in a poster presentation at the Informal Science Educator Association conference hosted by the Botanical Research Institute of Texas. This research is part of the Trinity River Turtle Survey, a mark-recapture study of turtles in the trinity river. This specific project was studying the diatoms (a type of algae) on the back of the turtle shells captured during the survey. Diatoms are a critical component of aquatic ecosystems as they make up the bottom of the food chain, similar to plants in a terrestrial ecosystem. They also act as indicator species, which can be used to determine the water quality. 

Katherine Faulkner answering questions from a participant. 

On the left are Paschal teachers Mrs. Salazar and Mr. Brinker and on the right student Katherine Faulkner and PhD student Shelly Wu. 

A close up of the poster

The Paschal Science team traveled to Grandview High School this past weekend to compete in the UIL B competition. There were more than 30 High Schools competing and hundreds of individual students. Paschal placed first as a team, and won first and second place individually in Biology!

Congrats to Joseph Reitman for first overall, Andy Ryu for fourth and Thu Pham for 10th. 

After skipping January due to illness, the team was back at the Trinity River Friday morning with temperatures in the low 30's. Unfortunately the cold weather caused the turtles to lose their appetites. No turtles were trapped today, but it was still a fantastic morning. The students continued to rack up field experience and practice setting up/taking down turtle traps. There were tons of birds at the study site, and we did manage to capture one fish in the turtle traps!

The PHS Trinity River Survey completed the third survey on December 17th. Despite the cold weather we managed to trap two male cooters! The front claws on male cooters are unusually long and used for courtship, making it easy to identify the sex of individuals. 

The science team traveled to UTA this past Saturday to compete in the Regional UIL Academic Meet. The team placed second overall, with a great showing by Andy Ryu, Melissa Pighetti, Anand Iyer and Joseph Reitman. The Science Team ends the year as the fifth best team in Texas!! Congratulations on another fantastic year.

From the left:  Mr. Brinker, Andy Ryu, Anand Iyer, Joseph Reitman, and Melissa Pighetti.

As the premiere biology competition for high school students in the United States, the USA Biology Olympiad (USABO) enriches the life science education of nearly 10,000 talented students annually. It provides the motivation, curricular resources, and skills training to take them beyond their classroom experience to the level of international competitiveness.

The results from the fourth virtual meet of the year were released over spring break. Paschal took home the bronze as a team. Individual awards included first place Biology overall for Andy Ryu and first place freshman chemistry for Jack Boller. 

The second weekend of spring break the Science Team traveled to San Antonio to compete in the Texas Math and Science Coaches Association STATE meet. The Team finished in 6th place overall and individually Andy Ryu won fourth place for sophomores and Joseph Reitman finished in 6th place for juniors. 

Saturday March 4, the science team competed in the Trimble Tech Invitational and won first place team! Melissa Pighetti also won first place physics. The District Science competition is only a few weeks away, and the team looks to be in great shape!

On Thursday February 16th two teams of 8 students traveled to UT Dallas for the TEAMS competition. TEAMS is an annual STEM competition that challenges students to work together using their math and science skills and knowledge to solve everyday engineering problems. The upperclassmen team finished in sixth place, while the underclassmen finished in second place. 

The underclassmen receiving their medals and a trophy for second place. 

Most of the upperclassmen team relaxing their neurons prior to competition. 

The competition room.

Twenty science club members traveled to Lake Ridge High School for the UIL B release. Several students scored personal bests and Jorge Natera won chemistry with a perfect score! The underclassmen team won second place and the upperclassmen team won third place. 

This past Friday 16 students in the Science Club competed in the second virtual meet of the year. The top three scores of Melissa Pighetti, Andy Ryu and Anand Iyer made up our team score which was the sixth best out of more than 100 Texas High Schools! Freshman Jack boller also finished with the third place chemistry score in the 9th grade division and Joseph Reitman finished had the 5th place biology score for the 11th grade division. 

A small group of Paschal science club members traveled to Argyle this weekend for a science competition. The team placed third overall, and Joseph Reitman won biology!