BOYLE HEIGHTS : She Has Vibes Down to a Science

Diana Hernandez understands that vibrations and frequencies occur in everyday life. For instance, when people speak, it causes vibrations. And when doctors use Magnetic Resonance Imaging to look inside the brain and other parts of the body, they use a certain frequency.

The 11-year-old incorporated both into her presentation this month to judges of the L.A.’s BEST third annual Celebrate Science and Space Fair and was one of four students who won trips to the U.S. Parent/Child Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala.

Diana’s triumph is especially sweet because when she moved to the Pico Gardens neighborhood just 10 months ago from Mexico, she didn’t speak a word of English. She enrolled in the after-school program at Utah Street Elementary School, from which she recently graduated, learned about science and other subjects and enough English to impress the judges on her presentation.

L.A.’s BEST (Better Educated Students for Tomorrow) provides free after-school activities to 4,000 children in 20 elementary schools in what the program has identified as some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods.

The four students who won trips to space camp, including Terrie Lavann from 68th Street School in South-Central, were chosen out of 200 who competed citywide, said Francine Harcum, L.A.’s BEST science coordinator.

“For us it was quite a success story,” Harcum said, referring to Diana’s win.

Diana, who spends her summer days playing with cousin Gladys Hernandez, 11, and writing letters to friends back home in Michoacan, wants to become an anthropologist because that discipline combines two of her favorite subjects.

“I like science, I know science, and I like social studies,” she said, while showing off her winning entry in front of her aunt’s house last week. She was to visit Alabama last week with sixth-grade teacher Maria de la Torre, because her mother, Maria Garcia, a full-time housekeeper, had to work.

For the science competition, Diana built a pendulum out of narrow wood plank, wooden dowels, hooks and washers. Dowels of varying lengths hang from the 20-inch frame and, after a long one is tapped, the rest start swinging from the vibrations.

“It’s supposed to make this one move at the same time because it’s the same weight and size,” she said, kneeling to watch the movements. She said she got the idea out of a library book, and De la Torre helped her with the building materials.

Diana said the project took some thinking, research and about three days to get the design just right. As a reward, she was presented at her graduation and her teacher treated her to lunch at Taco Bell.

“I’m surprised because she didn’t know English before she came here and also because she hadn’t been studying here long,” said her aunt, Marta Rubalcava, who watches Diana and her 8-year-old brother, Mauricio Hernandez, while their mother works. “But she was a good student in Mexico. The schools are tougher than here . . . they won’t pass you if you don’t deserve to pass.”

She added: “I’m proud of her.”