Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts held its annual Science Fair and Senior Research Symposium (SRS) Feb. 22-24. All seniors must complete a Science Fair or SRS project as part of their graduation requirements. In addition to being judged on their projects, the students participated in a Junior Academy competition, which is a 10-minute oral presentation about their projects.
“These projects help you develop critical thinking and critical communication skills,” Science Department Chairman Dr. Brian Monson told the students at the awards ceremony on Friday. “Those skills will serve you well throughout your life.”
Science Fair categories included animal science, behavioral and social sciences, cellular and molecular biology, chemistry and biochemistry, computer science, earth science, energy and transportation, engineering, environmental sciences, mathematics, medicine and health, microbiology, physics and astronomy and plant sciences.
The first place winner from each category completed a second round of judging with the following students selected as the overall winners:
Alec Emry of Mena won first place in the Science Fair for his project titled “Allicin and Penicillinase: Negating Penicillin Resistance in Bacterial Culture.”
Maliha Bhatti of Little Rock won second place for her project “Using Fe-C Nanoparticles and RF to Deliver Erlotinib and DOX to Pancreatic Cancer Cells.”
Hunter Dunne of Arkadelphia won third place for his project “Induced Hydrophobicity of Tungsten Nanorods Grown on ALTS and How it Relates to Anti-icing Properties.”
Robert Watkins of Garland City won fourth place for his project “Form Follows Function: A Venomous Explanation of for the Exceptional Allosaurus.”
Rob Shenton of the GenCorp Foundation presented the Science Fair awards during a ceremony on Feb. 24. GenCorp Foundation sponsored the 2012 Science Fair prizes. Pictured with Shenton are the overall winners, from left, Bobby Watkins, Hunter Dunne, Maliha Bhatti and Alec Emry.
The Arkansas Environmental Federation also provided cash prizes for the top two overall winners and their teachers.
Alec, Maliha and Hunter will advance to the state Science Fair, March 30-31 at the University of Central Arkansas. Alec and Maliha also won expense-paid trips to compete in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair being held May 13-18 in Pittsburgh, Penn.