Utahn is Science Search finalist

For good reason, the Intel Science Talent Search is nicknamed the "junior Nobel Prize" — and this year, a Utahn is a finalist. According to contest organizers, this is the first time a candidate from Utah has reached that stage since 1994.

She is Shannon Babb, an 18-year-old resident of Highland, Utah County, in her last year at American Fork High School. When she became a semifinalist, she won $1,000 in scholarship money and an equal amount for her school. Reaching the finalist stage means she raked in $5,000 more in scholarships, a laptop computer and a trip to Washington, D.C., March 7-14.

There, she will compete as one of 40 student presenting their projects; this includes a poster session for members of Congress. Scholarship prize money ranges from $100,000 for the top winner, through awards of lesser amounts until the seventh- through tenth-prize winners' $20,000 each.

But it's not about the prize money. It isn't even about winning another contest for the young researcher, who already has a four-year, full-tuition presidential scholarship and numerous other awards.

It's about helping the ecosystem, says her mother, Anita Babb, and about inspiring even younger people to get involved.

Her latest project monitored the health of the Spanish Fork River. As the Intel Science Talent Search Web site, sciserv.org/sts/65sts/Babb.asp, notes, "For six months, Shannon collected water samples, measured several chemical and physical parameters, tested for E. coli (bacteria), and collected macroinvertebrates at seven sites.

"Her data indicated that all seven sites exceeded Utah EPA guidelines for cold-water fisheries at some point during the study."

"I found there's a lot of pollution that was directly linked to man, but it would be relatively inexpensive to do remediation work on it," Shannon Babb said in a telephone interview.

Asked how she carried out the river study, she said the first step was to "wake up at 4 a.m.," then go to the river to measure factors including dissolved oxygen, phosphorus, nitrates, alkalinity or acidity, and how turbid the water was. She checked stream width, depth and flow, and checked the vegetation.

She caught aquatic bugs. Some varieties like stoneflies and mayflies indicate good water quality, creatures like crane flies tend to show up in average water, and some types are found in poor-quality water.