Prospect Heights Whiz Kid: Michael Del Meyer-Starr

Name:  Michael Del Meyer-Starr

Age: 11

Grade:  5th

School: Brooklyn New School

Achievements: 

For as long as he can remember, Michael Del Meyer-Starr has been into science.  His first great love, starting when he was 5, was oceanography; however he viewed it simply as a fascination with the ocean, shipwrecks, sharks, whales, manatees, and other aquatic life.  He devoured books on the topic, looking at the pictures while his parents read to him.  He believes his interest was triggered by his passion for swimming in waves.

About a year ago Michael really got into chemistry.  He conducts experiments at home in his Park Place backyard (normally under adult supervision) which he prefers to school because he can do dangerous things, such as the candle and spray can experiment. 

“That was fun” he says of setting a pile of leaves on fire.  “I wasn’t around for that,” interjects his dad, Matt Meyer.  He has also tried, unsuccessfully, to set vegetable oil on fire with a match. 

Michael just loves to use what he has around the house to test a hypothesis.  He prefers experiments with an edge of danger because the answer is unknown and you have to figure it out on your own.  Typical experiments that are found in textbooks you can just look at the answer.

When not setting things ablaze in his yard, Michael hones his science skills at Colorado College’s Whiz Bang Science Summer Program for elementary school children.  He’s attended for four years straight, each summer a different discipline.  So far he’s studied rockets, reusable energy sources, roller coaster and motion, and lastly chemistry where a notable experiment was exploding a watermelon by placing dry ice in a hole and plugging it up.  This year, his final one, explores the properties of matter and energy.

As he enters middle school at the Urban Assembly Academy of Arts and Letters, Michael has already decided he wants to be a scientist and get a Ph.D. in either chemistry or physics.  He’s thought about submarine research but has reservations because he said he couldn’t survive six months in close quarters. 

"I like my space,” he said. 

Michael is also a world traveler.  His first trip abroad, when he was two, was to Ireland.  He remembers watching the Pink Panther on the flight and not being able to fall asleep.  To this day he still can’t sleep on planes.  Since then Michael has traveled to Trinidad/Tobago, Puerto Rico, Canada, and has made several trips to Ghana to visit family.   If he could go to one place it would be to Egypt to see the Great Pyramids which he’s always liked.

While he loves seeing different sites and experiencing foreign cultures, he is not an adventurous eater.  He recalls a Ghanaian peanut soup, “I swear that chunk of meat was moving.”  His dad replies, “I think it was the soup.  It was wavy, wavy soup.”

Michael’s favorite travel memory is swimming every day in a natural pool fed by a waterfall inside a bird sanctuary in Trinidad.  What’s not to love?  It perfectly combined his two great passions, science and travel.  “But,” Michael remembers, "it was too cold.”

Key to Awesomeness:

Niomi Plotkin, a family friend, suggests it's his "ability to think deeply about all matters big and small.  From science to social dynamics between kids, Michael Del  is always thinking and problem solving.  His spirit and curiosity to learn and grow has amazed me since he was just beginning to talk and walk.  I have no doubt that his contribution and mark on the world is going to be enormous."