Hoy Sisters Capture Sixth at National ArgiScience Competition

By Frances Weaver, FFA Reporter • November 20, 2023 • 376 Views

Paige and Nora Hoy

Tyrone FFA members Nora and Paige Hoy placed sixth at the National FFA AgriScience Fair Event with their “Eggmosis” Project in the Food Products and Processing Systems category at the 96th National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, IN, in early November.

They also presented their research (shared below) at the FFA Student Showcase Stage and spoke with industry professionals and other FFA members during the AgriScience Poster Presentations.

“Our project began back in late spring, early summer of 2022 during a family discussion on proper nutrition to help us sustain our dance schedules and practices,” Nora said.

“During the conversation, I brought up what I was learning in science class on osmosis,” Paige added.

The experiment was run to show how different solutes at various concentrates (salts and sugars) affect osmosis in a cell.

Through discussions with the agricultural educator and previous observations in the Ag room, the Hoys began to conduct research to determine how osmosis impacts human and animal cells. Both researchers are also active dancers and were interested in how the different solutes may be impacting their own bodies in regard to physical performances and intense training.

They presented their initial research at the 2023 PA Farm Show in January.

Based on feedback and conducting further trials, they submitted their written report to the PA FFA State AgriScience competition and completed a Zoom interview in April.

Winning their division and category provided them the opportunity to submit a written report and application to the National FFA level competition in June. August they received notice they were selected as National Finalists, meaning the top 10 in their category and division.

In September they presented their research to another panel of judges via a Zoom meeting.

During the National FFA Convention, they received their placing and received their silver medals.

“We would like to express our special thanks of gratitude to our Agricultural Education Teacher and Mom, Tiffany Hoy, as well as our Dad, Phillip Hoy, for providing us guidance and encouragement to question our environments and conduct experiments,” said Nora, “To the expert science teachers Bryan Gruber, Beth Cannistraci, Gary Aharrah of Tyrone High School, and Jennifer Hubert of Notre Dame High School, NJ who offered suggestions and solutions to better our topic on the impact of specific sugars and salts in the osmosis process. These individuals and more helped us in conducting a lot of research and we became more confident in utilizing the scientific method and working as a team. All scientists concurred we should only focus on salt solutions and data until consistent data was documented.”

Eggmosis by Paige and Nora Hoy

Abstract:

The experiment was run to show how different solutes at various concentrates (salts and sugars) affect osmosis in a cell. Through discussions with the agricultural educator and previous observations in the Ag room, the researchers began to conduct research to determine how osmosis impacts human and animal cells. Both researchers are also active dancers and were interested in how the different solutes may be impacting their own bodies in regard to physical performances and intense training.

The procedures of this study were broken into five parts: shell removal, preparing eggs and documenting preliminary data, mixing solutions, osmosis experiment and data collection, and data collection final calculations. The first part described how the store-bought eggs were utilized to represent the cell, but before osmosis could occur the shell had to be dissolved. In Trial #1 the eggs were soaked in vinegar for 24 hours, but in Trial #2 the time was extended to 48 hours to remove more of the shell. In part two the preliminary or baseline data was determined after the eggs were rinsed after a vinegar soak.

Once again in Trial #1, the eggs were divided into bowls to be soaked in solutions, but in Trial #2 part two was adjusted to soak all of the eggs for 24 hours in distilled water after the vinegar bath and then obtain the preliminary weight of each egg and sort into solution bowls. Part three in Trial #1 explains how all of the solutions are mixed and in Trial #2, salt solutes were the focus, and sucrose was left out of the trial based on conversations with science experts. In part four the procedures added the solutions to the eggs, which were 1000 mL of distilled water and 100g of the respective solute (sea salt, Himalayan salt, Iodized salt, pure cane sugar, coconut palm sugar, and stevia) in Trial #1 and 250g of salt solutes to 1000 mL in Trial #2. Trials #3 and #4 were conducted in the same manner as trial #2.

The results of the first trial of this experiment determined that the different solutes did not have a significant effect on the osmosis process in the eggs. Having experts weigh in on the data from Trial #1 and information in the research, the researchers conducted Trial #2 with adjustments. The sea salt and Himalayan salt 25% solutions had the greatest increase in mass to cause a hypertonic egg with the Iodized (table) salt solutions with about half the increase in mass. Trial #3 Iodized (table) salt 25% had the greatest increase in mass to cause the same effect as in Trial #2, causing the researchers to continue to run trials to collect and analyze further data. Trial #4 Himalayan salt 25% solution had the greatest increase, yet not a significant difference from the other two salt solutions. This conclusion posed the following questions in the researchers’ thoughts: 1) Will molecular value have an impact on osmosis? 2) Does temperature

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