FRANKFORT, Ind. – Karina Castaneda, a Frankfort High School Senior, received notification from the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair that her project – Strenuous Sequencing: Exploring the Effect of Bilingualism on Executive Functioning in the Human Brain – placed in the Top 20 of the Behavioral and Social Sciences category.
Castaneda, a member of the Class of 2021, was one of the 1,833 Regeneron ISEF 2021 finalists; representing 49 states and 64 countries across the world – a competition that was held virtually for the first time in its more than 70-year history to keep the finalists and their families safe during the ongoing pandemic.
“I was super excited, especially because we weren’t expecting it,” said Castaneda via a press release issued by the Community Schools of Frankfort. “Being from a small town, small state of Indiana in the United States, it was totally unexpected. So when I heard my name announced, it was very exciting!”
Although Castaneda’s projects for the past 5 years have centered on the bilingual brain, she started working on this year’s project back in September – during the peak of the pandemic while safety measures in place to protect students, staff, and teachers.
Something Bret Rhea, Director of High Ability at CSF, spoke about during the April 13, 2021, School Board meeting with respect to the challenges Castaneda had to overcome in completing her project.
“Probably the most impressive part of her project which was spurred by this year – the test that she used to assess the executive functioning is a neurological test called “trail making test” which is a paper and pencil test,” said Rhea to the School Board and public attendees. “Back in October, we were trying to figure out how can we test 600 middle schoolers if we can’t have them touching these pencils and papers. So she wrote a computer application – she basically self-taught herself how to write this application. She wrote the code and then we put it on flash drives and she would go into a classroom of kids and would plug them into their devices. The kids then were able to do the test she had made – on their computers – and the results were stored on the flash drives. And, no one contaminated anything. A very innovative thing.”
To qualify for the International competition, Castaneda had to compete at both Regional and State levels and finish with a designation that would allow her to advance.
At the Regional level in March, a 12-county area surrounding Lafayette, Castaneda won the best Behavioral Sciences project award and placed in the Top 3 of all projects in the contest advancing her to the State competition.
In April, she earned the mark of second-best Behavioral Sciences project as well as placed in the Top 20 of all projects in the contest in the State of Indiana – a designation that earned her a spot as a representative for Indiana to the International competition.
At ISEF, she was one of only six projects from Indiana to be recognized for excellence at the International level.
Below is the video submitted to ISEF by Castaneda, where she speaks about her project and findings.
Castaneda’s future education plans include attending Purdue University in the Fall of 2021 to study Business Management and later attend law school to become an attorney and practice family law.
