Volume 9, Issue 1, January-December, 2015

From the Editor

 

Dear Readers,

June, 2015

We at the International Scholastic Journal of Science are proud and excited to publish the first paper in the new incarnation of our journal. Having started as the International School Bangkok (ISB) Journal of Physics in 2007, we decided in 2015 that we were ready to take our journal to the next level. Rather than limiting ourselves to only publishing papers by authors from ISB, we decided to expand the mission of the Journal, offering secondary school student-scientists from around the world the opportunity to publish in our Journal. We renamed the journal the International Scholastic Journal of Science, and now we are publishing our first paper in the new journal. While this paper is by a student from ISB, we look forward to our first paper from an author from another school.

We continue to focus on entry-level research conducted by secondary student scientists within the framework of their science classes. This first paper proposes a simple method, accessible to most secondary science labs, for measuring the relative effect of temperature on Young's Modulus. I would like to recognize and thank Associate Editors Juwon Kim and Dhamma Kimpara for being the lead editors for this paper. We hope you find it valuable, and that it helps encourage student scientists from other schools to submit their work for publishing.

 

October, 2015

Our second paper of this volume focuses on the the kinematics of spinning Dipterocarpus Alatus seeds, a tree native to Southeast Asia. While many species of spinning seeds from temperate regions have been studied, this is the first study published on the behavior of this seed. Little has been published about the aerodynamics of two-winged spinning seeds, and we hope that this paper serves as a first step in expanding our understanding of this wonder of nature. The only equipment needed for this research was a video camera, showing once again that with time, motivation and dedication, secondary students are capable of conducting and publishing valuable, original scientific research. Associate Editors Bryan Ahn and Dhamma Kimpara worked with the author in preparing this paper for publishing.

 

November, 2015

The two papers published in November both investigate the coefficient of restitution of a ball. One studies the behavior of a tennis ball bouncing off a racquet, comparing this to a tennis ball bouncing off a wall. The second looks at playing basketball in the rain, and how the depth of a puddle affects how well a basketball bounces. It proposes a new constant, the puddle constant, which quantifies the effect of a puddle on how well a ball bounces. We hope this opens a new area of investigation, determining the factors that affect the puddle constant under different conditions. I would like to acknowledge the time and effort of the volunteer Associate Editors, Xiaoyu (Ryan) Xu and Eugene Jang, for being the lead editors for the tennis ball paper, and Shannon McCarty and Byung Joon Ahn, for the basketball paper. They made time in their busy schedules to work with these young authors, guiding them through the writing, review, and revision process of publishing their papers.

 

December, 2015

We conclude our first year of publishing the International Scholastic Journal of Science with a paper looking at something that is important to students: How must I adjust my dribbling when playing basketball on the different surfaces available in a school? The authors have looked at the coefficient of restitution of four different surfaces at their school for a range of dribble speeds. I will let you read the paper to learn the results.

We are excited to have recently received our first submissions from students from other schools, and hope to be able to publish those papers in 2016.

If you have secondary school students who are doing original research into entry-level topics, please suggest that they submit their lab reports and original data to ISJOS for consideration for publishing. Read more about the process here.

 

Jonathan Eales
Editor, ISJOS