Science Heroes Home Page > Elise Manley

Elise Manley

OMSI: Where were you born? Where did you grow up?

EM: I was born in Portland Oregon, and have lived in Portland all my life.

OMSI: What three words best describe you?

EM: Creative, dependable, motivated.

OMSI: As a child, did you have any hobbies, interests, or experiences that helped prepare you for success in science?

EM: I have always been very curious and driven to succeed. In the past I have participated in school science fairs, and have learned from those experiences.

OMSI: Please tell us about a mentor or teacher who helped to inspire your interest in science.

EM: My third grade teacher Mrs. Daines, and fifth grade teacher Mr. Richardson both had a big influence on my life because they encouraged me and helped me push myself. Math is a big part of science, especially in Systems modeling. Mrs. Daines and my eighth grade algebra teacher helped boost my confidence in math, and I learned a lot from them.

OMSI: What's the worst trouble you ever got into in school? Have you ever blown anything up?

EM: The most trouble I've gotten into in school was hiding in the bathroom during PE class when we were supposed to be doing jump rope! I have never blown anything up as far as I can remember.

OMSI: Describe a difficult situation that you were in and how you handled it.

EM: Two summers ago I traveled to Spain and Morocco. The roles of girls and women is very different there then it is here. Being a tourist, I stood out a lot because of my blonde hair. The experience opened my eyes to the world beyond the United States. Besides cultural differences, everyone spoke Spanish. I wanted to talk to people and ask questions, but I couldn't because of the language barrier. Instead, it motivated me to learn Spanish, and to someday go back to Spain.

OMSI: What is your dream? What do you most hope to accomplish in your career?

EM: My dream is to have a successful life where I can help people. I am hoping to get either running or academic scholarships in the future that will enable me to attend a nice college. I would also like to travel the world and experience new things. After that, I would maybe like to be a teacher, because I think it's one of the most important and satisfying jobs someone can have.

OMSI: How do you feel about the current state of science education in the U.S.?

EM: I think that our schools need to be funded better in order to improve the state of science education. With so many things being cut, it seems schools are on tight budgets. As a result, schools can't meet the needs for better science equipment and technology that would help kids succeed.

OMSI: What is your favorite class this year?

EM: Honors Biology.

OMSI: What do you like to do in your free time?

EM: In my free time, I like to hang out and play sports with my friends. I also like to do art projects like scrap-booking. I also enjoy traveling, especially touring with my choir. In the past, we have sung in Texas and New Orleans.

OMSI: What do you consider your very best skill?

EM: My very best skill is a tie between running and singing. Both of these things make me happy.

OMSI: Please tell us about your science fair project. How did you come up with the idea for your project? How did you go about researching and building your project? What was it like to participate in the science fair, and what do you remember most from the fair?

EM: I am taking a systems modeling class this year in school. One of the requirements for the class was to work with a partner on a quarter long modeling project. Laura and I thought it would be interesting to model how a fad spreads, and what factors cause this. A very big fad right now is the Atkins Diet, and we wanted to do our project on something relevent to society today. We researched our project in class by going to various websites that had to do with the diet. We wanted to get a feel about what influences people to start the diet, and we even went to Atkins chatrooms and talked to people on the diet! We built the actual model on a computer program called Stella. This program allowed us to build a model that would produce a graph showing the popularity of the diet. It shows the number of people on the diet five years ago, right now, and in the five years in the future. Since the diet is still going on and probably hasn't even reached it's peak yet, we came up with three scenarios of would we thought would happen. Our whole class participated in the science fair this year for the first time. It was a little intimidating, because some of the people had been working on their projects for the whole year, and there were some really nice presentations. What I remember most is the excitement of everyone flooding into the gym when the science fair had just started.

OMSI: If you were to build your science fair project again, would you do anything differently?

EM: Since we didn't have much time, Laura and I weren't able to show all the things we were hoping to with our model. For example, there are two factors that go into people starting the diet: hearing about the diet from other people (word by mouth) and the media's influence (advertisements, TV). We were only able to show word of mouth, and not the media's influence.

OMSI: Please tell us about your educational plans and goals.

EM: I am looking forward to taking honors and AP science classes in the next couple of years. One of my goals is to graduate high school with honors.

OMSI: Have you had any on the job training or science related work experience?

EM: I was a teacher's assistant for a science teacher last year in middle school. Cleaning out beakers and setting up labs showed me that there is a lot of work involved in conducting science experiments, but it's worth it!