Super Students
Saturday, October 4, 1997
Name: Shana K. Isobe
Age: 16
School: Maui High School
Favorite subject: Mathematics
Pastimes: Traveling
Future: Medicine
When Shana K. Isobe talks about the stress of preparing pasta, she isn't referring to a food recipe. Bright and a 'live wire' too
Isobe is talking about a pasta bridge she helped to build during a National Youth Science Camp while working with scientists and students in Bartow, W. Va. this summer.
Students, two selected from each state, built a pasta bridge as a final project in engineering, locating stress points and redistributing the weight of the structure.
The bridge built by Isobe and nine other students turned out to be better than the one constructed by teachers.
"A lot of it was conceptual. A lot of it hands-on work," said Isobe, a senior at Maui High School.
This year, she will be student body president.
Isobe, the daughter of Glen and Ione Faye Isobe, has a 4.1 grade-point average and is a member of the National Honor Society.
She's taking advanced placement courses in physics and calculus and has completed advanced placement courses in European history, U.S. history, and chemistry.
She and two other Maui High School students recently were selected to work in a student program at Rocketdyne at the Maui Research and Technology Park in Kihei.
"She's not only academically talented and gifted. She's just involved in life as a whole," principal Howard Omura said. "She's a live wire and enjoyable to be around."
Gary Kubota, Star-Bulletin
