SCIENCE FAIR

Students earn accolades in annual science fair competition Meghan Williamson • Staff Reporter EVOLUTION OF EXPERIMENTS

The seventeenth annual Northeast Florida Science and Engineering Fair (NEFRSEF) was held at the Florida Blue Conference Center on February 10.

Students from 11 area schools competed to receive an award in one of 13 judging categories.

In the past seven years, BK has taken home awards in almost every single category, and this year, they followed this same pattern. This year at NEFRSEF, BK took home 28 special awards, as well as 14 place awards. There were 37 participants from BK for the competition, compared to the 36 students from 2019. Last year, BK took home 15 place awards as well as 32 special awards at the annual NEFRSEF competition.

Overall, this year at science fair BK’s students received fewer awards than last year’s students did, but the school still performed well, according to science department chair Vicki Schmitt.

“This year we had many of our participants from past years work in teams,” Schmitt said. “That made our results for this year better than what we anticipated.”

Junior Gabriella Khazal began participating in science fair in fifth grade at San Jose Catholic School and has continued throughout high school.

“It’s just something I really enjoy participating in,” Khazal said.

She attended the state fair and took home one special award from the U.S. Air Force in 2019.

“I don’t go to win; I just go for the experience and learn some things while I’m there,” Khazal said.

Every BK student is

Juniors Lauren Massais and Lily England measure out amounts of polyvinyl alcohol for their science fair project.

invited to participate in the science fair, but most choose not to compete. Those who choose to participate and attend NEFRSEF are typically surprised by all the competition has to offer.

“I wasn’t expecting to enjoy the competition as much as I did,” sophomore Frankie Alvarez said. “I just did it because I was required to for class, but I actually really liked working on my project and being able to see other high school students who spent the same amount of time on their project as I did and put so much effort in.”