Middle and high school students who earned top honors in the annual Santa Barbara County science fair logged on to Zoom Wednesday afternoon.
One after another, the students explained their experiments in great detail and answered questions.
Their projects covered a variety of topics ranging from how to hit a golf ball the furthest to analyzing the impact of adjusting voice onset time on the perception of the pair of English consonants.
The Science and Engineering Council of Santa Barbara — a nonprofit devoted to providing interaction among people engaged in engineering and scientific activities in Santa Barbara County — hosted the free online event that featured the division and best of show winners of the annual county Science and Engineering Fair.
Wednesday’s event recognized a handful of Santa Barbara County-area students and their mentors as they prepare to participate in the 70th annual California Science and Engineering Fair next month. This year’s state fair will be held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The county Science and Engineering Fair is open to students in grades 7-12 who live in the county or attend a public or private school in the county, according to the event’s organizers. Home-schooled students age 12 to 18 also can participate.
The county fair, which occurred online earlier in March, qualified 17 winners to compete in the state Science and Engineering Fair, and awarded more than $2,000 in prizes, according to SBCSF.
Click here for a complete list of county students eligible to enter the 2021 California Science and Engineering Fair.
Top winners of the county science fair presented their projects, experiment procedures, results, explanation of data findings, and inspiration for their project. The event provided each student with valuable practice in advance of the California science fair.
“We want to congratulate their efforts and also help prepare them for judging at the state fair,” SEC program chair Yvonne DeGraw said.
Junior High Best in Division Award Winners
» Goleta Valley Junior High School student Gabriele Scussat in the life sciences division for his project, “Impact of Ecological Restoration on Wildlife in the Goleta North Campus Open Space.”
Scussat and the other participants made a formal presentation at the event.
“My project did highlight some interesting findings,” Scussat said.
» Goleta Valley Junior High School student Jonathan Yang in the physical sciences division for his project, “How to Hit the Golf Ball as far as Possible (projectile motion).”
“I play golf, so I wanted to see how to hit the golf ball the furthest,” the seventh-grader said. “In order to do this, I did some research.”
Senior High Best in Division Award Winners
» Cate School student Timothy Zhang in the life sciences division for his project, “Heart Rate Analysis Using Facial Tracking Remote Photoplethysmography and Deep Learning.”
“The goal is a quick, contact-free preliminary health diagnosis,” Zhang said. “It was a COVID-inspired project.”
» Dos Pueblos High School student Gavin Jimerson in the physical science division for his project, “Fighting Fire with AI: Machine Learning to Predict Wildfire Causes and Consequences.”
“Wildfires are both a local and global concern,” Jimerson said.
Julian Nott Award for Scientific Creativity
» Goleta Valley Junior High School student Eamon Gordon received the Julian Nott Award for Scientific Creativity for his project, “Assessing the Effect of VOT on the Perception of English Consonants.”
“I chose to investigate VOT (voice onset time) because of its importance in communicating distinctions between words that otherwise sound identical,” Gordon said.
The award by the SEC is given in appreciation and memory of the late Julian Nott of Santa Barbara, who served on the SEC and is recognized as a founder of the modern scientific ballooning movement. Nott died in 2019.
The award recognizes a creative and ambitious project that is addressing a novel scientific question, according to event organizers. The Julian Nott Award is new this year.
SEC also presented certificates and trophies to the winners in the divisions, and each student will receive a monetary award of $100.
Wednesday’s program was sponsored in part by Community West Bank, Bengal Engineering and Toyon Research Corporation.
“Great job by everyone,” SEC co-president Tim Murphy said. “Great work by the students, teachers, parents and counselors.”
In addition to hosting activities promoting public awareness of science, SEC provides scholarships to local students who intend to major in physics, science, chemistry, engineering or mathematics, and are in need of financial aid for college, according to the organization.
— Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at bholland@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
