Gainesville High School sophomore Abhith Kasala will present his work on microplastics at the International Science and Engineering Fair in May.  

Kasala will represent Alachua County after winning the Environmental Science Senior Division of the district’s science and engineering fair. He also won the best in show award for the fair.  

Alachua County will also send 19 other middle and high school students to the fair. 

“I’ve been interested in this since the first time I went to a beach and saw how much plastic pollution there was and how long it took to degrade,” Kasala said in a press release. 

His project, Ecotoxicological Effects of Microplastics on Acquatic Organisms and Novel Extraction Methods of Microplastics in Water Filtration, focused on measuring and limiting impacts of plastic at zebrafish embryos.  

Kasala said the results could also prove useful to humans and microplastic impacts to our bodies. 

Kasala has worked on the project for years. An earlier project earned him first place at the Stockholm Junior Water Prize competition that has thousands of entries from 40 nations.  

The other students participating in the International Science and Engineering Fair are as follows:  

Junior Division 

Dun’marion Orie, Mebane Middle  

David Cowart, Ft. Clarke Middle  

Gwendolyn Wendling, Westwood Middle  

Ivan Shorter, Ft. Clarke Middle  

Charlize Moghaddam, Lincoln Middle  

David Rong, Lincoln Middle  

Kaayana Sharma, Lincoln Middle  

Aradhya Kasala, Howard Bishop Middle  

Jaganesh Ramkrishnan, Lincoln Middle  

Pranav Mannam, Lincoln Middle  

Gavin Xie, Lincoln Middle  

Maggie Gao, Lincoln Middle  

Senior Division  

Nathan Wei, Buchholz High  

Gyanna Gao, Eastside High  

Shiven Sharma, Eastside High  

James Jiang, Buchholz High  

Luke Xue, Buchholz High  

Sophia Rong, Buchholz High  

Hamza Khan, Gainesville High