ASMSA students garner State Science Fair team title, individual awards
HOT SPRINGS — The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Science and the Arts won first place overall for the fifth straight year at the Arkansas State Science and Engineering Fair.
Liam Johnson, a senior from Pearcy, won third place in the Best in State category and first place in the ISEF qualifying category at the state competition. Johnson finished in fourth place overall at the West Central Regional Science Fair held at ASMSA in February. This year’s state competition was held at the University of Central Arkansas on March 31 and April 1.
The State Science and Engineering Fair qualifies six students for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, the largest international pre-college science competition and a program of the Society for Science and the Public. Including Johnson, ASMSA students earned five of the six awards which includes an all-expenses-paid trip to ISEF.
The other ASMSA students who earned ISEF category recognition at the state competition included seniors Joe Sartini of Benton, second place; Taylor Mosely of Conway, fourth place; Rebecca Parham of Alma, fifth place; and Tristan Tompkins of Springdale, sixth place.
Those students will join fellow seniors Martin Boerwinkle of El Dorado, Carson Cato of Bryant and Krishna Patel of Little Rock at the international competition. Boerwinkle, Cato and Patel earned all-expenses-paid trip to ISEF by finishing first through third overall respectively at the West Central Regional Science Fair.
The eight qualifying students for ISEF ties the school’s record for most students in one year. ASMSA sent eight students to ISEF in 2002. This year’s international competition will be held May 14-19 in Los Angeles.
ASMSA students earned 26 individual awards in the State Science and Engineering Fair categories. ASMSA swept the awards for the Computer Science category.
“The ASMSA delegation to the State Science Fair was very strong this year,” said Dr. Brian Monson, ASMSA’s Science Department chair, a physics instructor and director of the West Central Regional Science Fair.
“They brought home more first-place awards than any other school in the state and the trophy for the best performing school. This shows the strength of our researchbased curriculum at preparing young scientists and engineers.”
The State Science Fair determines the overall winner based on the number of individual category awards earned by schools. The formula to determine how the overall winner was chosen changed in 2013. ASMSA has won the overall award at each State Science Fair since the change.
Special awards for categories included Martin Boerwinkle of El Dorado, first place, and Spencer Hazeslip of Cabot, honorable mention, Acxiom Best Computer Science Project.
Students also competed in the State Junior Academy of Sciences competition. Competitors discussed their project in a short presentation followed by a short question and answer session. Two ASMSA students won overall awards and one student’s prize includes an all-expense-paid trip to present at the 2018 National American Junior Academy of Sciences in February.
State Junior Academy of Sciences winners included Joe Sartini of Benton, first place; Martin Boerwinkle of El Dorado, second place; and Ben Allen of Bella Vista, third place.