From bubble monsters to oil spills: how science has inspired me to make a difference
By Chy Murali, a senior at Centennial High School and Regeneron Science Talent Search 2018 finalist
When I was six, I stepped into the lab for the very first time. I couldn’t quite reach the lab bench and I remember being quite intrigued by the weirdly shaped glass cups laying all over the counter. That day, someone showed me how to create a bubble caterpillar, a wild creature that emerged excitedly from a beaker that moments before had only held a soapy mixture. My confusion at how such a thing could be created from mixing all of these ingredients caused me to begin asking the simplest, yet most intriguing question: “How?”
The gears in my head began to turn, and that is the story of how my life-long affection towards the lab and exploration began.
My initial questions began leading me to ask others about everything else around me. How can soap and water be used to make a bubbly creature? How is baking powder not a liquid if it takes the form of its container? How do we not feel the Earth move if it’s constantly rotating?
I had a multitude of questions and an unquenchable desire to answer them all.
There were so many things that I had just accepted in life as fact without understanding why it was like that. My need for answers pushed me to look at the world around me in a critical lens.
It was my seventh grade science fair that fundamentally altered the way I asked the question, “How?” My class was told to use our project as a way to tackle an issue we cared about. Rather than just attempt to figure out how something worked, I was told to also consider how I can fix the problem.
That challenge allowed for me to see myself for the first time not only as an explorer but also as an innovator. I looked at the world around me as a place that needed my help.
That year I chose to tackle the problem of cleaning an oil spill after remembering the haunting images and commercials I had seen of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, a disaster whose effects were still being felt years later. It was the first time I felt like a scientist on a mission and to this day I thank that opportunity for allowing me to see myself and my role as a scientist in a new light. Over the course of the next few years I worked tirelessly on developing a solution, but the most rewarding part was knowing that I was making a difference.
Over the years, I’ve found out that my scientific research has allowed me to explore the issues I care about and broaden the way I view the world as something not only to understand but also help. My fascinations have changed from bubble monsters to oil spills to finding a solution to cancer, but the one thing that has always remained constant is the excitement to learn something new and ask how I can make a difference.
