This year’s Science and Engineering Fair was held on Saturday, January 27, 2024, at Great Mills High School. It was originally scheduled for Friday, January 19 at the Southern Maryland Autonomous Research and Technology (SMART) building but, due to inclement weather, it had to be moved to our backup date and location at Great Mills High School. We had a total of 107 Middle and High School students participating.
Special Awards Judges evaluated student projects on criteria different than the Category Judges. Over $3200.00 in cash and scholarships, plus other prizes, were given out by both local and international institutions. We want to thank all of the Special Award judges and their sponsors for making this a very successful year.
Students participated in 13 separate categories. All first and second place winners were offered the chance to move on to the next level and compete at the Prince George’s (PG) Regional Area Science and Engineering Fair. Senior Grand award winners at the Prince George’s Fair then move on to compete at the highest level: The Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), which will be held this year in Los Angeles, California. In total 34 St. Mary’s County projects will compete at the regional level.
We had two Junior Division and two Senior Division Grand Award winners. In the Junior Division the winners were Vivian Carey with her project “Vitamin D for Dancers: Testing an Outdoor Dance Floors”, and Catherine Fucito with her project “Ferromagnetic Effects On Electromagnets”. The Senior Division Grand award winners were Aarav Sharma with his project “Sticky Styrofoam”, and Alexandra Clark with her project “Forecasting Dengue Fever in the U.S”.
This year, 2024, was another excellent year for the St. Mary’s County Science and Engineering fair. We were able to successfully more than double the number of student projects from last year, and are sending a significant number forward to compete at the regional level in PG County.
