Natalie McGeeâs could help save an important underwater resource.
The Mt. Lebanon High School juniorâs research and experimentation focusing on a seldom-studied marine animal earned her a divisional first-place finish in the recent Pittsburgh Regional Science and Engineering Fair.
Perhaps more importantly, âExamining the Effects of Marine Microplastics on Porifera Microbial Filtrationâ pursues a potential avenue toward reversing the disappearance of earthâs coral reefs.
At issue is whether tiny plastic pollutants are inhibiting sponges, they of the phylum Porifera, from their normal function of consuming microbes and removing potentially harmful bacteria from the water.
âIt was a topic that apparently had been overlooked by scientists until very recently, because a lot of the focus right now is on animals that actually consume the microplastics as food and how that could be a problem,â Natalie said.