MCLA hosts Region I High School Science and Engineering Fair

NORTH ADAMS – The brightest young scientific minds in western Massachusetts recently gathered at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) to showcase their work and compete for state and international recognition.

The Amsler Campus Center gymnasium was filled with dozens of cardboard displays during the Massachusetts Region I High School Science and Engineering Fair last Thursday (March 14).

“It’s just fun to see the projects,” Christopher M. Himes, MCLA STEM Program Manager and one of the chairs of the Region I Science Fair Planning Committee, told The Beacon. “The science fairs are our biggest pre-college events at the Berkshire STEM Pipeline Network.”

The fair featured science experiments conducted by students from Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden and Hampshire counties.

“It’s a great experience for them,” said Westfield High School physics teacher Renee Sweeney. “It’s the most authentic science experience they have in high school.”

“I’ve seen the quality of the projects grow over the years,” she added. “They have new ideas every year.”

Winners

The first prize winners qualified for the international science fair, held this year in Phoenix, Ariz.

Westfield High School took home both first-place slots, for Shannon Boley’s “Effects of an Administrator’s Prosody on Autistic Children” and Patrick Monette and Dillon Sienko’s “Effects of Organically-Enriched Soil on Tagetes Tenuifolia Development.” All three students seemed very excited to be going to Phoenix.

“I’m going to leave New England for the first time,” Mr. Monette said.

“We’re both a little numb, but happy and really excited,” added Mr. Sienko. “A lot of work went into [the project].”

For Miss Boley, the win was more personal, as her brother is autistic.

“I am overwhelmed,” she told The Beacon. “This is such an honor.”

The rest of the winners qualified to enter the Massachusetts State Science Fair, held at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on May 2-4.

While students from Westfield won the top prizes of the day, several Berkshire-based students participated in the fair and took home honors, including students from Berkshire Arts and Technology (BArT) Charter School in Adams and Pittsfield, St. Joseph Central and Taconic high schools in Pittsfield.

Taconic High School senior Matthew Duane received an honorable mention for his project, titled “The No-Trip Whip.” He came up with this project after noting that walking dogs with leashes that leave excess slack can be dangerous and cause accidents.

“This was my solution to that,” he said.

Two sophomores from St. Joe, Mary Kirsimagi and Clarissa Mitchell, did their experiment on the “Flower Color Preference of Hummingbirds.”

“We wanted to see if hummingbirds went to red the most,” Miss Kirsimagi said, adding their experiment indicated hummingbirds are more attracted to purple.

This was the ninth year MCLA has hosted the Region I Science Fair.

“We were really glad when MCLA decided to pick up the fair,” Ms. Sweeney said. “It’s really comfortable here.”

The Massachusetts Region I Science Fair for middle school students will take place on April 27.

Posted by Catherine M. Krummey on March 21, 2013. Filed under Education News,News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry