Mira Loma High School senior Divya Nag, 17, would rather spend time in a lab than go to a party. A bubbly girl with huge brown eyes and a ready smile, Nag admits many don't understand her preference.

"It's really hard to explain how being around a bunch of machines could be fun," the El Dorado Hills teen said.

Nag found a sympathetic ear at the Davidson Institute for Talent Development, a Reno-based national nonprofit organization that supports profoundly gifted youth.

The institute awarded her a $10,000 scholarship this summer for her development of a method for determining organic matter loss during and after a wildfire.

"The day I found out, … I really felt like I was on top of the world," the teenager said.

Nag has always been interested in math and science. She was the first 13-year-old to take a class at Folsom Lake Community College after exhausting the math resources at her middle school. Since then, she's taken five other courses there.

At 14, she became interested in fire prevention when her next-door neighbor's house burned down. A year later, she jumped at the chance to study geology at a Stanford summer program.

"My teacher was absolutely crazy and took us out and about all the time," Nag said.

His enthusiasm was contagious. Nag decided to study earth science and petitioned University of California, Davis, to let her use the thermochemistry laboratory last summer.

It was there that she got the idea for her project. When one of her experiments became contaminated with dirt, she used machines normally employed in chemical experiments to analyze soil samples.

From there, she figured out a way to measure soil ignition temperatures and developed an entirely new ratio for determining how much organic matter would be lost in a given soil sample when heated to different temperatures.

The work has definite real-world implications. Nag said 12 percent of forest fires begin as controlled fires. Before setting a prescribed burn, firefighters could use her ratio to quickly figure out how much organic matter is likely to be lost in a particular patch of land. The higher the amount lost, the higher the risk of a burn getting out of hand.

In addition, farmers who burn land to replenish it can figure out just how much organic matter they need to burn and at what temperature they need to burn it to achieve maximum fertility.

Nag's project was beyond the scope of even her supervisors at the UC Davis lab. That contributed to her euphoria when she heard about the scholarship.

"I knew that it was all my work," she said.

According to the Davidson Institute, gifted students such as Nag often don't get the support they need.

"Struggling students tend to get more attention from teachers than students who are excelling," said Tacie Moessner, the Davidson Fellows program manager.

Nag agrees. She also said that even her parents sometimes found it hard to support her.

When she started spending every free hour of her day in the lab, they began to doubt letting her continue with her project. Both have jobs in the tech industry and didn't understand what she was doing in the lab all day.

"(They) sometimes felt like it was too hard of a project for me. I would barely see (them)," Nag said.

Still, they let her finish.

"It was worth it … because she was so passionate about it. This (scholarship) is just icing on the cake," said her mother, Taruna Nag.

The teen hopes to use her scholarship for college. She hasn't decided where she wants to go yet, but she definitely wants to continue her lab work.

Her current project involves analyzing soil samples from various forest fires that plagued the state only weeks ago.

"I want to figure out how it happened, why it happened, and to see how to prevent it in the future," Nag said.

On Sept. 24, Nag heads to Washington, D.C., to meet with 19 other Davidson fellows chosen this year, all of them under 18. The trip will include meeting with members of Congress.

"We (want to) exemplify why it's important to support these kids, because when they're supported, they can do these astounding things," Moessner said.

Call The Bee's Andrea V. Brambila, (916) 321-1201.