Freshman Jacqueline Kolof and juniors Alicia Malmberg, Kaitlyn Hudenburg, Emma Cahoon, Rebecca Jiang, and Edward Chung qualified for the State Science Fair in Lexington, Virginia April 6 by placing first in their categories at the regional competition.

The topics of their projects were the Ability to Insulate, Historic Climatology in Northern Virginia, and the Effect of Root Chord Length on Time to Apogee.

“Apogee is the time it takes to reach the highest altitude,” Chung said. “To prepare for states, we used the same board but added more trials. For the rocket, we changed the length of the fin that was glued on and measured time to apogee.” 

Students began working on their science fair projects in December.  At the regional competition, they met with two judges who offered advice and gave critiques.  

“There are several hundred students that participate at the science fair,” physics teacher

Stephen Scholla said. “Students must make their project unique in order to win over the judges.”

Students believe that the fact that they faced such tough competition made their success more rewarding.

“Our science fair project was about Dendrochronology, which is the study of tree rings, and the correlation between wind sub-trigger rings and weather patterns,” Hudenburg said. “It was a big surprise when we won for environmental analysis and qualified for states so we were really excited.”