High school science fairs are gatherings of students who have designed science experiments, investigations, and/or projects. They provide opportunities for students to display their knowledge of science and their ability to conduct research on their own. The students who participate in science fairs spend long periods of time such as weeks or even months working on their projects, collecting data, and also analyzing their results. While at the science fair, students present their hard work to a panel of judges who will then evaluate the students’ work based off criteria (creativity, communication, scientific method, etc.) The science fair is an educational and fun event that lets students improve skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, and communication.

Science itself is essential to the understanding of the world around us, as it enables us to explain the phenomena that we observe. Even further, science gives us the tools we need to solve problems, develop new technologies, and improve our quality of life. Through science, humanity has made significant progress in fields like medicine, energy, and even communication – all things that students today work on improving every day. Science also helps address global issues like climate change, global warming, over-pollution, and many many more.

Recently, the ACPHS Science Fair was held where many students were given the opportunity to show off the hard work that they have put into their projects over the span of the school year. The winners of the ACPHS Science Fair will then compete at the district science fair, and then the state science fair. The winners for each category were as follows:

Animal Sciences:

• Aarna Patel and Anshika Kedia (The Detection of Diabetes using Ants (Pogonomyrmex barbatus) )

Behavioral Science and Social Sciences:

• Ivan Alexender Kroumov (Live Electroencephalography and Neurostimulation to Increase Cognitive Attention) 

Biomedical and Health Sciences:

• Twyla Morrison (The Effect of Neural Network Model on Prediction of Valley Fever) 

Biomedical Engineering (first place tie): 

• Ahmad Riyad (Decellularization of Aloe barbadensis Miller Leaf in use for Tissue Scaffolding) 
• Arnav Mishra and Aayush Rastogi (Development of a More Effective Suture Alternative) 

Cellular and Molecular Biology (first place tie):

• Vahini Patel (Impact of Different Nanoparticles on Wound Health) 
• Ohm Patel (The effect of type of food preservatives on the apoptosis rate of C.elegans) 

Earth and Environmental Sciences:

• Nathan Lucke (Improving Public Transportation in Phoenix Metro Area) 

Embedded Systems:

• Emily Enriquez and Amal Fayad (Microbial Fuel Cells: Landfill Waste as Energy Source) 

Energy: Sustainable material and Design:

• Ayden Papaccio and Rohin Janarthanam (Creating Power from a Hydro-Electric Turbine) 

Engineering Technology: Statics and Dynamics:

• Cyrus Faisal (Engineering an Aerodynamic Supersonic Jet Inlet) 

Environmental Engineering:

• Xieshi Zhang (HydroCleaner: Low Cost Autonomous Trash Collecting Boat) 

Robotics and Intelligent Machines:

• Michael Lau (Binding Characteristics of COVID-19 Receptor Binding Domain and Antibody) 

Systems Software (first place tie):

• Tylor Duong, Arveen Aziz (The Effect of Disease Transmission Distance on Population Survival Rate) 
• Brad Wu (A Novel Method to Relieve Severe Water Shortage in US Southwest Using Massive Mobile IoT and Processing Algorithms) 

Translational Medical Sciences:

• Elijah Fuller (CardioSafe: A Portable End Tidal CO2 Monitor for Predicting Cardiac Arrest)

Following the ACPHS Science fair- on Sunday, February 25, was the Chandler Innovation Fair. The Chandler Innovation Fair is an event hosted by the City of Chandler aimed at displaying scientific progress made by schools and businesses. Almost all of the schools in the district had their own stall at the fair, displaying the work that students created. Along with schools, their were also companies and other enterprises like U of A, ASU, Northrop Grumman, Banner Health, SRP, and many more. ACP was one of the CUSD schools that had a stall at the event, displaying some of the award-winning projects from the ACPHS Science fair. The following students had their work displayed: Aarna Patel, Alex Kroumov, Emily Enriquez, Amal Fayad, Rohin Janarthanam, Ayden Papaccio, Xieshi Zhang, and Cyrus Faisal.

All in all, the last few weeks have involved a lot of scientific development from students at ACP. Congratulations to all of the winners of the science fair, and don’t forget to strive for the impossible and be extraordinary, Go Knights!