Tony Olivas, 14, left, teacher Johana Franklin and Trevor Olivas, 14, from St. Viator Catholic School with a cooler alternative to artificial turf their STEM team has experimented with. For their hard work the 8th graders have earned an all-expense paid trip to D.C. after winning a science fair.
Sunday, July 19, 2015 | 2 a.m.
On a hot September afternoon, 14-year-old soccer players Tony Olivas and Milosz Fernandez-Kepka took off their cleats to give their feet a chance to cool during halftime of a game. They were surprised to see steam rising from them.
As their coach began to talk, the pair looked out at the vast expanse of artificial turf covering the field and noticed a heat wave blurring their view of the distance.
“We didn’t understand why the field was so hot,” Olivas said.
Knowing their school’s annual science fair was coming up, the two St. Viator Catholic School eighth-graders decided to team up with Olivas’ brother, Trevor, to investigate what was causing the excessive heat on the field. They were afraid it might injure players.
Little did they know their solution, a cooler alternative to artificial turf, would take them through the state, regional and national levels of the eCybermission science fair, which challenges students to find solutions to problems in their communities using science, technology, engineering and math. Each won $4,000 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C.
To get started, the students watched documentaries and read scientific articles about artificial turf. They also relied on knowledge they’d gleaned from their daily lives.
“My mom would rather have me wear a white T-shirt on a hot day instead of a black one because the white one would reflect the sunlight, so we thought color might be a factor in the turf,” Olivas said.
The team cut a piece of artificial turf donated by Las Vegas’ parks and recreation manager into four squares. Half were spray-painted a lighter yellow-green color. Half contained chrome rubber (which is made of recycled tires and used on artificial turf fields today), and the others contained an organic infill, a dirt-like clay substance.
The turf squares were left out in direct sunlight for a week. Special infrared thermometers lent to the team by UNLV recorded their temperature every 10 minutes.
The results showed it was infill type, not turf color, that affected the turf’s temperature.
The team hopes to meet with the manager of the Las Vegas Parks and Recreation Department to find a way to install the improved turf on the valley’s fields.
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