Some scientists publish their work in professional journals. Some post the results of their experiments on websites. The students of Butler County Community College use poster board to publicize their semester's work.

Tuesday, students took part in the third annual National Science and Technology Poster Session in the lobby of the Science, Technology and Cultural Center.

The event was organized by Melinda Ripper, associate chemistry professor. There were 26 posters representing projects each undertaken by two to four students in a variety of classes.

“This is our third year. It's mostly our second-year students but some freshmen are here as well,” Ripper said.

“This is really a nice capstone experience for all of our students regardless of their path,” Ripper added.

The posters, demonstrations and models are a way to illustrate the students' research projects.

“This is one professional way to present information,” Ripper said of the posters.

“They are expected to explain the purpose of the project, its background, what the results are and what they mean,” she added.

For Sam Trogolo and Regis Collins, members of the mechanical technology class, it meant explaining how the group came up with and manufactured a musical chord learning aid, a device to help people play the guitar.

Collins said, “We actually took three different devices and incorporated their designs to create our own.”

“What we did was reverse engineer those to get the measurements and the flaws out of the originals,” said Trogolo.

Using a 3-D printer to make a prototype and analysis to illustrate strains the aid was subject to, the class was able to refine and improve its own device.

Professor John Ripper's biology class also expanded man's knowledge by adding two new plants to the National Institutes of Health's GenBank genetic sequence database, an annotated collection of all publicly available DNA sequences.

DNA sequences can be used to identify different species and genes, said Ripper.

“It's like DNA bar coding,” he said, adding the method can be used to correctly identify rare and endangered species.

Student Eric Prokopchak said, “At the beginning of the semester, we wanted to find if seed packets were labeled accurately for their plants. Everybody grew plants.”

The students then cut up a part of each plant, crushed it and mixed it with an enzyme.

Using a chain reaction technology, the plant samples' DNA was multiplied and manipulated to produce a DNA sequence.

Prokopchak said the results showed that two of the sequences found by the class were not in the GenBank's database.

The sequences, for a type of wheat grass and a plant known as Bells of Ireland, will be added to the database with a citation listing class members as authors.

None of the students involved in the project are biology majors, said Amanda Jamison, a sophomore in the history program.

“What we try to do as an institution is make our students well versed in a variety of disciplines,” said John Ripper.

“With the lab science requirement we are encouraging scientific literacy.”