Commack School District

Excellence in Education

Awards - 2017 - 2018

Science Research Team Impresses Throughout the Year!

Our Science Research students work hard throughout the year developing their amazing projects. Many students also work over the summer with their mentors furthering their research. All of these students are to be commended for their dedication and desire to further their research, knowledge, and understanding of the world around them.

These students are led by our dedicated, gifted and talented science research teachers, who helped these young scientists all along the way – Mr. Richard Kurtz, Dr. Lorraine Solomon, Ms. Jeanette Collette, Dr. Daniel Kramer, Mrs. Andrea Beatty, and our Science Director - Dr. Offerman-Celentano.

We'd like to extend a very heartfelt thank you to our soon to retire friend - Mr. Richard Kurtz. Mr. Kurtz has been an integral part of the Science Research team and has helped to inspire countless students further their scientific understanding. His influence on the Science Research Program will become a legacy that we are confident he will be incredibly proud of - as we are to have worked with him!

New York State Science Congress High Honors!

Congratulations to our amazing science research team consisting of Rohan S., Jordan W. and Chapin Z. for their High Honors (the equivalent of 2nd place) at the NYS Science Congress Science Fair recently held in Buffalo. Their project, which won them the regional competition - qualifying them to compete at the state level was... "Can We Develop an Accurate Sample Size of the Milky Way Galaxy to Learn What Mass Function Can Teach us About Stellar Distance Function?”

May 2018 - Long Island Science Congress and NYS Science & Engineering Fair

Long Island Science Congress Senior Division

Sophia - High Honors (2nd Place) - Olfaction Discrimination Between Alzheimer's Mutated Fruit Flies

LISC Junior Division
Nikhita, Jessica, & Caroline – Highest Honors (1st Place) & Most Distinguished Categorical Project in Biology - Animal and Plant & Winners of the STANYS Suffolk County Award - The Effects of Heavy Metal Pollutants on Fruit Flies for Potential Application to Humans

Rohan, Jordan, & Chapin – Highest Honors (1st Place) & Most Distinguished Categorical Project in Earth, Space, Energy & Winners of the Peter D. Feine Memorial Award - Can We Develop an Accurate Sample Size of the Milky Way Galaxy to Learn What Mass Function Can Teach us About Stellar Distance Function?

Michael & Joshua – High Honors (2nd Place) & Winners of the Muriel Karp Memorial Award - Conditioning of Crabs

Elena, Annabelle, & Amy – High Honors (2nd Place) - The Effect of Sugar and Sugar Substitutes on Regeneration in Planaria

Ashley & Lakxshanna – High Honors (2nd Place) & Winner of the LI Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Education Leadership Award - Effective Wildfire Algorithms

Kevin, Jack, & Paul – Honors (3rd Place) - The Effect of Diphenhydramine on Planaria

Alyssa & Emma – Honors (3rd Place) - Vitamin and Protein Impact on Butterfly Development

Grace, Erika, & Catherine – Honors (3rd Place) - The Effects of Exposure to Addictive Substances on the Trail-Following Ability of Termites

Annika & Jodi – Honors (3rd Place) - The Effect of pH on Regeneration on Planaria

Faith, Hailey, & Olivia – Honors (3rd Place) - How do Algal Blooms Affect Oxygen Levels in Water Incorporated with TAP Media?

Dylan & Cole – Honors (3rd Place) - Is Convenience a More Impactful Factor than Fruit Preference for Food Selection in Drosophila melanogaster?

Tryphena, & Jeremiah – Honors (3rd Place) - Which has a Greater Influence on Mung Bean (Vigna radiata) Growth: Cocklebur Extract or Fertilizer?

New York State Science & Engineering Fair – Andromeda Divsion
DeVaughna – 2nd Place in Behavioral Science - The Effect of Hand Gestures on the Comprehension of the German Language

Molloy and SAAWA Science Fairs

The results are in and once again our science research students have excelled at local, very competitive competitions! Congratulation to the following students for their tremendous achievements in two fairs. Our young researchers attended the Kathy Belton Science Fair at Molloy College on March 16^th with over 500 projects entered and the South Asian American Women’s Alliance (SAAWA) on April 22^ndwith over 60 projects entered.

Chapin, Jordan, and Rohan - First Place in Physics at SAAWA for their project titled, “Can we Develop an Accurate Sample size of the Milky Way Galaxy to Learn what Mass Function can Teach us about Stellar Distance function?”

Kristen and Daniel – Second Place in Chemistry at SAAWA for their project titled, “Testing the Efficiency of Different Metal Catalysts in Water Electrolysis”

Candace and Izza – Third Place in Biological Sciences at SAAWA for their project titled, “Allelopathic Effects of Fallopia Japonica Tested on Common House Plant”

Anthony - First Honors at Molloy College for his project titled, “Antibubbles and the World of Physics”

Mikayla and Emily - First Honors at Molloy College for their project titled, “The Effect of Natural Antimicrobials on E coli”

John - Honorable Mention at Molloy College for his project titled, “In Silico Modification of Rubisco Against Inhibitor CA1P“

Heading to States!

Congratulations to our Long Island Science Congress research team. The students took 1^st place at the regional competition and will be traveling to Buffalo on June 2^nd to compete in the New York State Science Congress competition! We wish our winning team of Rohan, Jordan, & Chapin all the best with their winning project, “The Correlation between Star Mass and Stellar Black Hole Distributions”.

Other March 2018 Competitions

The Medical Marvels Competition took place on March 9 at the Feinstein Institute of Northwell Health with schools all across Long Island and New York City participating. Our students’ proposed innovative technological approaches to help alleviate the opioid crisis.The following students won for best presentation:

Alexis, Wongeong, and Alexandra

Three Toshiba Exploravision groups received an Honorable Mention this year for their innovative projects that could change the future! Only the top 10% of the hundreds of projects received are awarded his designation.

Nikhita, Gavin, Brianna, and Tryphena – “NovAxon: The Future of Nerve Regeneration”

Jayson, Jack, Craig, and Marlee – “SurgPort: The Synergy of Surgery and Teleportation”

Liam, Evan, Cole, and Rohan – “RecovNH3: From Garbage to Fertilizer”