These Teenage Scientists Can Wow You

What's on today's high school student's mind? Well, if you're one of the smartest students in America it could be climate change or clean drinking water.

For the past week, 40 top high school science students have been showing off their research at the National Academy of Sciences in a competition for $530,000 in scholarships.

The Intel Science Talent Search, run by the Society for Science & the Public, will culminate tonight with the announcement of the top winner who will receive $100,000. Nine other winners will take home between $20,000 and $75,000. All of the 40 finalists will each get $5,000 and a laptop.

In this story, we've picked three research projects that focus on the environment. See what the students have to say about their work and be inspired.

Name: Smitha Ramakrishna
Age: 17
School: Corona del Sol High School in Tempe, Ariz.
Subject: Clean Drinking Water

Ramakrishna's interest in clean water began when she visited an Indian orphanage in New Delhi when she was 12. She saw the hardship endured by the children there, and their lack of potable water left a lasting impression.

"I live in Arizona, which has been in a drought for over 10 years. But you can turn on the tap, and the water would gush out," said Ramakrishna, who has since joined organizations to raise money for the orphanage, as well as to promote water conservation in her local community.

She has also been doing water and sanitation research at the Arizona State University. Her research looks at whether sucralose, the artificial sweetener sold as Splenda, can break down easily during the wastewater treatment process. Ramakrishna noted that other studies have shown that chemical compounds consumed by people, such as medicines, can end up harming the wildlife or in our drinking water supplies because they aren't filtered out or detected during wastewater treatment.

What Ramakrishna has found is that sucralose doesn't break down using standard, bacterial treatment methods. She tested different treatment methods and found that using a combination of ultraviolet light and titanium oxide can break down the compound into biodegradable molecules. The process requires a lot of time and a high concentration of the two key ingredients, which would add costs to the treatment process.