8th grader studies fish mercury levels for science project

PANAMA CITY BEACH — Like a lot of Bay County residents, Brian Lague eats fish caught locally on a regular basis.

Lague, an eighth grade student at Surfside Middle School, has taken his interest in fish and applied it to a science fair project that he plans to enter in the 2011 Three Rivers Regional Science and Engineering Fair, an annual event.

His project involves the study of mercury levels in local fish, with his research taking him to the U.S. Geological Survey Florida Water Science Center in Tallahassee and a Florida A&M University laboratory.

He said the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill played a part in his choice of a science fair project this year.

“It got me wondering if the oil spill could affect the mercury in the fish, because oil has mercury in it,” Lague said.

Marlene East, Lague’s mother, said in an e-mail her son had also worked with Carrie Fioramonti, a scientist at NOAA Fisheries’ Panama City-area office, on the project.

Jay Buddi, Lague’s eighth grade honors science teacher at Surfside, described his student as “going above and beyond” in terms of his research for the science fair project.

“That’s the thing about Brian. If you tell him stuff, he will use it,” Buddi said Thursday, as he sat with Lague outside Surfside’s administrative office.

For his latest science fair project, Lague has collected more than 75 fish tissue samples from Grand Lagoon and the Gulf of Mexico, including snapper, grouper, amberjack, menhaden, pinfish, croaker and mullet.

East said her son spent a day at the USGS lab in Tallahassee, with Lia Chasar helping Lague grind and dry all of the samples.

She said the FAMU lab offered to let Lague use their direct mercury analyzer to get mercury readings, with NOAA and USGS scientists helping her son run statistical tests to analyze the mercury levels and compare them to recommended Food and Drug Administration levels.

At FAMU, Lague said he worked with graduate students who helped him with his readings.

Lague’s project, as well as those from the rest of Buddi’s honors students, is due to Buddi by Nov. 29.

Buddi expects a good portion of his students’ projects will be entered in the Three Rivers fair, which he said should be held in January or February 2011.

The 2010 Three Rivers fair featured 120 projects, 90 percent from middle school students, with a dozen entries from area high school students.

The science fair projects fit into one of 14 categories, including computers, behavioral and social science, zoology, engineering, chemistry and math.

Lague said he participated in the 2010 fair, with a project on worm regeneration.

While he didn’t have all of his readings back as of Thursday, Lague said that his preliminary findings showed that the fish he tested contained mercury amounts within the FDA’s recommended levels.

“So you could feel comfortable eating them,” Buddi said.