Congratulations to Garden City High School seniors Anthony Ienna (center, left) and John Cassano (center, right) for being named national Semi-Finalists in the 2010 Museum of Natural History Young Naturalist Awards competition. Pictured here with 6-12 science coordinator Dr. Elena Cascio and science research teacher Dr. Steven Gordon, the seniors were 2 of only 19 selected as Semi-Finalists nation-wide.

John’s research project involved eradicating Japanese knotweed in the Garden City Bird Sanctuary. He found an environmentally friendly (“green”) method of removing invasive knotweed that eliminated the need to apply toxic herbicides.

Anthony studied sudden wetland dieback in Cedar Beach, N.Y. He discovered that water in dieback areas was missing critical alkaline compounds that are needed as buffers so that water can maintain a constant pH.