Melody Hong, of General Douglas MacArthur High School, heading to National Brain Bee

A Levittown student has been crowned the champion of this year’s Long Island Brain Bee.

Melody Hong, 16, a junior at General Douglas MacArthur High School, in March won first place in the sixth annual competition, which tested students’ knowledge of the brain at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell in Hempstead.

Second place went to Stephanie Hsu, of Jericho High School, while third place went to Isabella Fong, of Great Neck South High School.

Hong advances to the National Brain Bee, to be held at the University of Central Florida on April 20-21. She will also participate in a summer internship sponsored by the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research.

This year’s brain bee included nearly 60 students from more than 25 high schools across Long Island and New York City. The bee consisted of a multiple-choice exam based on “Brain Facts,” a book published by the Society for Neuroscience, as well as a practical exam. There were also a series of hands-on lab demonstrations to identify anatomical structures and functions in human brain specimens.

“The competition was a lot of fun and overall a very rewarding experience,” said Hong.

“As much as I love learning about biology from a textbook, it’s also nice to see what I’m learning about right in front of me.”

ELMONT

Coca-Cola Scholar

Elmont Memorial High School student Yusef Lateef was one of 150 high school seniors nationwide to be named a 2024 Coca-Cola Scholar by the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation. He was selected from an initial pool of more than 103,000 students based on academic achievements, community service and leadership skills.

Lateef will receive a $20,000 college scholarship and is invited to attend Coca-Cola Scholars Weekend in Atlanta from April 25-28. There, he and the other scholars will be guests of honor at an annual banquet and participate in a leadership development institute facilitated by program alumni.

FARMINGVILLE

Destination Imagination

A seven-student team from Lynwood Avenue Elementary School recently won first place in a competition meant to spark creativity and foster innovation.

The students won on the elementary level of the “Blast From the Past” category of a New York eastern regional tournament, coordinated by the nonprofit Destination Imagination, that was held in March. They were the sole first-place winners from Long Island.

The team was challenged to create and present a story about a character whose discovery of an artifact leads to a finding, school officials said. Their efforts consisted of designing a puppet to portray the character and performing an archaeological skit in under eight minutes — on a budget of $150.

ISLANDWIDE

Congressional App Challenge

Three original applications coded by local students were among about 340 nationwide named winners in the 2023 Congressional App Challenge, an initiative of the U.S. House of Representatives. The contest received 3,645 submissions, with winning apps to be showcased at the #HouseOfCode festival in Washington, D.C., from April 10-11.

Cold Spring Harbor High School students Buster Coden, Milan Lustig, Desmond Mehta and Ryan Smith won for New York’s 1st Congressional District with their app, Safe Water Operation, which provides users with data on the water quality of their local beaches.

Garden City High School junior Mannat Jain won for New York’s 4th Congressional District with his app, Anu-Kram, which provides assistance with organization and search capabilities for educational materials on platforms like Google Classroom.

Great Neck South High School junior Richard Xu won for New York’s 3rd Congressional District with his app, VolunHour, which simplifies the tracking of volunteer hours.

By Michael R. Ebert

michael.ebert@newsday.com

Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.