Harper Tyng, an eighth-grade student at Dunn Middle School, has felt building pressure to succeed academically as she has started thinking more about high school and college.
“Test anxiety has become a really big problem among students, just anxiety in general over school,” she said. “Tests are massive, and so if you are personally really worried about your grade, it can cause you a lot of fear.”
Wanting to learn more about her own test anxiety, Tyng set out to study the psychological phenomenon for her science fair project. Now, months into the process, looking deeper into the fear surrounding academic pressure has helped bring her academic commendation in a banner year for Dunn Middle School science fair competitors.
Tyng placed fourth in the Junior Cognitive Science Division of the California Science and Engineering Fair 2022 in April. Now, she’s prepping for the 2022 Broadcom Masters, billed as “The Nation’s Premier Middle School STEM Competition,” in June.
Tyng was one of nine Dunn Middle School students to bring home awards in the Santa Barbara County Science and Engineering Fair in March.
The county competition represented the best collective performance for Dunn in recent memory. Dunn Middle School STEM teacher Meg West has been overseeing Dunn’s science fair participation for the past 10 years, and in her time, she had never had this many students participate, let alone win awards.
“I was falling out of my chair,” said West, who watched along with the students as the results were revealed on a video conference. “We have had other gold and silver winners in the past, but to have a sweep like this, I was blown away.”
In the county competition Tyng and Sophia Elliot won gold and silver, respectively, in Cognitive and Social Sciences. In Molecular Biology, Chemistry and Microbiology, Dunn Students Gracie Pitts (gold), Robert Wilcox (silver), Ava Loper-Benson (bronze) and Margaret Watson (bronze) swept the entire category.
Gretchen Grenier won silver in Environmental Sciences; Devyn Hazard won silver in Mechanical and Earth Sciences; and Kayla Shomes won bronze in Botany and Zoology.
“A lot of people are really excited about it,” Tyng said. “They go, ‘Wow, I would never have thought to do the county science fair, but that’s really cool. I want to do that next year. I think there’s a pretty strong sense of pride at the middle school.”
Dunn School is a boarding and day school for grades 6-12 in Los Olivos.