EMTSEF

The ExxonMobil Texas Science and Engineering Fair was held in San Antonio April 9th - 12th. It is the fair affiliated with the most prestigious fair, the Intel-ISEF, which is an international fair and will be held in San Jose, CA this year on May 8th - 15th.



We had 16 students qualify from the Alamo Regional Fair. Of those we had the 2nd grand prize, 2 firsts, one 2nd, one 3rd, two 4th and one honorable mention. They give one of each prize for each category except the grands which are overall. 3 students qualified to go to the INTEL-ISEF.



In addition there is the Siemens competition where we had 1 semi-finalist and the TJSHS (Texas Junior Science and Humanities Symposium) which feeds into the American Junior Science and Humanities Symposium. We had 3 students go to that this year.

In our local science fair at our school we had nearly 800 projects presented and over $100,000 in scholarships awarded. All freshmen and sophomores in the Science and Engineering Academy Magnet School are required to do a science project and all upper class students are required to do a research project of some kind. I will have a much larger role in coordinating that fair next year.

more catch up

Seventeen of our students qualified from the Alamo Regional Junior Academy of Science Meeting to go to the Texas Junior Academy of Science competition at Texas A&M April 5th-7th in College Station. I was appointed to take them. We went with about 4 or 5 kids from Health Careers and their teacher. There was one from Clark and one from Stevens that qualified also but they elected not to go.



It was interesting trying to keep 17 kids in line by myself for 3 days and 2 nights away from home in a hotel. Unlike most science fairs they do not have a board to display their project but it is an oral presentation. They each have 12 minutes to present and 3 minutes for questions from the judges afterward. The first day is a preliminary judging and the 1st place winners from each category present again the next day for the final judging.



We had 3 first place, 5 second place, 5 third place and 1 honorable mention. (Only one of those pictured is a first place winner) One of our 1st place winners won 3rd grand prize in the final judging the next day.



First place winners qualify to go to the AJAS (American Junior Academy of Science) held in conjunction with the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) meeting in Washington, D.C. That is not a competition but a good learning opportunity. Grand prize winners are given a cash stipend to help with travel expenses.

ISWEEEP

Its been a while since I posted. For those, if any, who wonder what I have been up to and exactly what I do for a living these days, this is a part of it.



This is a picture from outside my hotel room in Houston on the 24th floor of the Hyatt Regency downtown. April 14th thru 19th was ISWEEEP, an international science fair sponsored by the Cosmos foundation. They invite kids from all over the world and pay their expenses to come to Houston and present their projects related to Energy, Environment and Engineering. I took 6 kids from our school.



One morning at breakfast I sat with a group from Kyrgyzstan and I complimented a couple of the girls on their mastery of English. They really dis speak well. On the last day out in front of the convention center they came up and handed me this hat and asked if I would like a souvenir of Kyrgyzstan.



They encourage kids to wear traditional costumes from their countries and have a flag show as part of the opening ceremony. One kid from each country brings the flag of his country to the stage. Afterward they had a country singer perform.

Of the 6 from our school, 2 won gold medals ($1000 cash prize), 2 won bronze medals ($250 cash prize if I remember correctly) and one got honorable mention. They also took the kids on field trips to NASA and to the Houston Zoo. One of our students parents who is a bowling coach at Holmes High School arranged for our group to go bowling one night. First time I have been bowling in many years.

If anyone would like more information or pictures or videos they can go to the website.