Student Scientists Score Big at County Science Fair

  • Science Fair Coordinator Andria Bloom (left) and El Tejon student scientists.  Josh Arreola (inset) of FMHS also competed. Nine of eleven local students who competed won first or second prizes at county level. The six in intermediate or high school divisions will go on to state competitions.

    Science Fair Coordinator Andria Bloom (left) and El Tejon student scientists. Josh Arreola (inset) of FMHS also competed. Nine of eleven local students who competed won first or second prizes at county level. The six in intermediate or high school divisions will go on to state competitions.

Friends and family cheered the 11 local students who took experiments to the 22nd annual Kern County Regional Science Fair in Bakersfield March 17. Nine of them came home with awards. Six of these, it has just been announced, are invited to the state competitions on May 19.

El Tejon School Regional First Place Winners

  • Forrest Csulak, 8th Grade: Chemistry; plus $75 from the American Chemistry Society and a Certificate and medallion from the U.S. Navy
  • Maribeth Villanueva, 6th Grade: Behavioral and Social Sciences
  • Jamie Bizzini, 6th Grade: Kinetic Energy, plus $75 from American Chemistry Society
  • Laura Jennings, 6th Grade: Plant Biology
  • Lily Hallmark, 5th Grade: Physics

Frazier Mountain High School Regional Second Place Winner

  • Joshua Arreola, 9th Grade: Applied Mechanics

El Tejon School Regional Second Place Winners

  • Rachael Oliver, 6th Grade: Zoology
  • Emily Oliver, 4th Grade: Thermochemistry
  • Brianna Edwards, 4th Grade: Astronomy, Earth and Environmental Science

Ten scholarships, totaling $9,000, were awarded to high school seniors at the Bakersfield event, held at Rabobank Center.

Intermediate and high school winners Villanueva, Oliver, Arreola, Bizzini, Jennings and Csulak have been invited to compete in the 58th annual California Science Fair at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. 

—Andria Bloom and Beth
Villanueva helped with this report

This is part of the March 20, 2009 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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