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Among Westminster Christian School senior Annalise Garrido’s high school career highlights are the research projects she’s done through one of Westminster’s signature programs.
“This year my project was with cancer flies,” she says.
She tested the flies with natural substances to see which could prevent tumors.
“One of them really worked.,” she says. “It completely prevented all cancer formation. It’s a Chinese medicine and is used as an anti-malaria (remedy) normally.”
Her projects have been entered in the Miami-Dade Regional Science and Engineering Fair and then at The State of Florida Science and Engineering Fair, and even the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair.
“Junior year in May, I competed at the international level,” she says. “The two years previous I was competing at the state level.”
Her freshman and sophomore years she was published in the journal at the University of Miami.
Her current project involves Vitamin E.
“I tested different level of Vitamin E with a substance I found last year,” she says.
She was following up on a theory that Vitamin E makes cancer worse.
Another highlight is the incredible number of community service hours she’s earned – between 1,000 and 1,500. She garnered many hours working at a number of the camps held at Westminster, including three soccer camps.
Garrido plays varsity soccer at Westminster. Last year she was named Third Team all Miami-Dade. She also plays club soccer.
One of her two community service projects had to do with soccer.
“I worked with my club to lay the groundwork for a recreational league, out of Doral,” she says. “We had set prices for sponsors, we had to create jerseys, and we had to reach out to local vendors to see if they would be open to potentially coming by with food trucks.”
Despite the work, the league did not pan out, but Garrido says anyone can pick it up and go with it.
Her second community service project was discovered at the Pinecrest Library, where she learned about Plarn, which is yarn made of plastic bags.
“We collect plastic bags, we assemble to plastic yarn balls and take them to the library for people to crochet them into mats for homeless people in Miami,” she says.
Any type of plastic bags can be used.
“I was sitting in the library,” she says. “I talked to one of the people about how it worked, and I brought it to my school. People will bring plastic bags, we have set up time at school to make them into balls, I take the finished balls to the library.”
The finished balls are the size of a large cantaloupe. It takes 75 plastic bags to make the balls. Some teachers offer extra credit for students who bring in the plastic bags.
Garrido teamed with the Westminster Science National Honor Society to make the balls.
She’s president of the club this year.
Last year she started the recycling program at her school. She noticed that people were drinking out of water bottles because of COVID and there was a lot of waste.
At school, she plays violin and double bass. She’s a member of the National English Honor Society, Rho Kappa, Mu Alpha Theta, the Foreign National Honor Society, the National Honor Society, and Model United Nations.
So far, Garrido has been accepted to Florida International University and Liberty University. She’s still waiting to hear from Johns Hopkins, Emory, and Carnegie Mellon. She plans to major in Chemistry on a pre-med track. Her goal is to be an anesthesiologist.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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