May 9--Living a cleaner lifestyle is becoming a larger priority for many and with the ideas of a few young thinkers, we just might be a little closer to acquiring cleaner energy sources and bettering our diets.

Take it from three Destin Middle School eighthgraders who just returned from the 54th Annual State Science and Engineering Fair of Florida, where their problem solving initiatives made them winners.

After watching her grandmother keep an eye on the glycemic index of foods in her diet, Camille Haeusler, 13, asked a question that would leave most people scratching their heads.

"Does the rate of amyloglucosidase breakdown of starch to glucose correlate with glycemic index"

That question was the basis of her science project that won third place in the biochemistry category at the state science fair.

Scientists' ability to measure the glycemic index, or the effect carbohydrates have on blood glucose (sugar) levels, outside of the body is up for debate as far as the medical community is concerned. Like Camille's grandmother, some would agree that not enough information on glycemic index is available to consumers.

Camille was prompted to try an experiment duplicating the breakdown of the sugar in vitro, in the lab, after reading that scientists in Australia said there was no correlation.

Biology professor Dr. Darryl Ritter at Northwest Florida State College helped Camille fine-tune her topic and she gave it her best shot measuring the breakdown process with a lab experiment.

"My testing was inconclusive," she said. "But I'm going to work on it."

Camille plans to polish her experiment and try it again for next year's fair.

Her twin brother, Cody, had the planet's health on his mind when diving into his project that won fifth place in the engineering category.

"I did my project on solar energy and engineering," Cody said. "I wanted to do a project on engineering for the future, because we're running out of fossil fuels and we need to find alternative sources of energy."

To create clean energy, Cody's mother helped him purchase three solar panels that together made 45 watts of energy, enough to power a submersible pump placed in a five gallon bucket of water.

The water was pumped through a "designed parabola" that heated the water up to 109.4 degrees Fahrenheit, a little warmer than the average hot tub.

His success at making solar energy work was squared with an idea that won Kyle Saleeby, 14, second place in the physics category.

Kyle generated what he calls clean electrical tidal power.

To create the tidal power, Kyle attached a water wheel to a boat. The moving tides turned the wheel that was fixed to a belt that powered a fixed magnet alternator.

"The alternator produced 80 volts, or 45 watts, of electricity that powered a halogen light bulb," he said.

He, too, plans to tweak the materials he used to make his experiment work more efficiently next year. Kyle said that he used a wooden water wheel that did not have bearings, and that the alternator he used was meant to run at higher RPMs.

Even in it's condition, the project caught the attention of the Green Energy Awareness Group out of Fort Walton Beach. The group asked Kyle to set up his project recently at the Power Up Energy Conference.

"The world needs a very good clean energy source, and for Destin it would work well," he said.

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