The Hall Monitor and LoHud.com spent a couple of weeks talking to students enrolled in science research programs at high schools in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties. (Read the story here.)

Many teens in the programs, which allow students to research and perform real-world experiments in specific science topics for up to three years, spent the summer doing research at local companies and at institutions across the country. The students are tackling ambitious projects from cancer research to the study of invasive earthworms to global warming. That’s a huge leap beyond the elementary vinegar and baking soda-spewing volcanoes we remember from science classes of yesteryear.

Several local students every year make it to the semi-finals of the Intel Science Talent Search. One instructor credits their success to a passion for learning.

Angelo Piccirillo, a science research teacher at Ossining High School, said what impresses him most about the science students is the quality of research they produce and, as evidenced by devoting summers to school work, the passion they possess.

“The passion is No. 1. You need to have it,” he said. “As long as it’s something they’re really interested in, you rarely have to push them. They’re willing to go that extra mile.”

We profiled several “Young Einsteins” last year. Click here to see videos of students last year explaining the projects that earned them the distinction of being semi-finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search.

As for this year’s crop, good luck and we hope to see you at the Intel finals in the spring.

(Photo credits: Melissa Guevara, a sophomore at Yonkers High School, checks hydroponic plants for aphids aboard the Science Barge on the Hudson River in Yonkers. Photo by Mark Vergari/The Journal News)