Katherine plays tennis with her father every morning. She also swims, bikes, reads, cooks, and writes in her journal. As a future photojournalist, Katherine looks forward to being able to "bring the world to others."
In an age of global warming, using hydrogen as an energy source has appeal. But first scientists must master how to efficiently extract hydrogen from water and then convert it to electrical energy in a fuel cell. Focusing on these two steps, Katherine hypothesized that if power and/or water temperature is increased, the time it takes to produce hydrogen through electrolysis of water will decrease. She also hypothesized that if the temperature of a fuel cell is increased, then the fuel cell's output will fall.
Katherine tested various levels of power input and different water temperatures in a series of electrolysis experiments, finding that higher power input slashed the time it took to produce hydrogen gas and that a higher water temperature slightly decreased the time. In other tests, Katherine tried three fuel-cell temperatures and found they resulted in only a very slight difference in fuel-cell output.
