Science Fair occurred Jan. 12-13 in the library. Many freshmen in Pre-AP Biology presented their research to judges, as well as students in the science research class. Seventy students advanced to the Austin Regional Science Fair on Feb. 16 at the Parmer Events Center.

Freshman Lennon Atkins researched the physical and health-related effects of coffee.

Q: How do you feel about science fair?

A: I think science fair is a fun and good learning experience. It was educational, and I liked what I discovered, but it was a lot of work too. It was fun to set up trials and discover the information the trials had for us, but we had to do a lot of research and make a ton of graphs.

Q: What was your project?

A: My project was the physical and health-related effects of coffee which I tested on a microorganism called Daphnia.

Q: What is Daphnia?

A: Daphnia is like, a plankton-type of crustacean. They’re also called water fleas.

Q: Why did you choose that project?

A: I chose to do my project because I personally drink coffee every day, and it interested me to see how it affected us on a daily basis.

Q: Is there anything you wish you’d done differently?

A: I wish I could’ve made a longer trial time to make sure my results were more concrete.

Q: What did you not like about science fair?

A: I don’t like the graphs we had to make because they were time-consuming and confusing. Graphs are definitely not my thing.

Q: What did you like?

A: My favorite part was making my tri-fold for presentation. It was basically gluing and pasting everything on and making sure it looked right. It was a lot less brain work to do.

Science Fair First Place Winners:

Animal Sciences, Meghana Karimisetty & Reese Niemtiz

Behavioral and social sciences, Elie Zimmerman

Biochemistry, Ankita Rao

Biomedical & Health Sciences, Alap Dave

Cellular & Molecular Biology, Case Conner

Chemistry, Brandon Rawls

Computer Sciences, Vienne Lee.

Earth & Environmental Sciences, Natalie Lemanczyk

Energy, Alexander Warren

Engineering Mechanics, Santiago Soto-Arango

Materials Science, Justin Milushev

Mathematics, Ryan Chang

Microbiology, Callie Maguire

Physics & Astronomy, Hunter Mauer

Plant Sciences, Kim Ngo