Stellar SARSEF projects!
56 Yuma County projects win awards at science & engineering fair
Last month, various schools from across Yuma County headed to the University of Arizona in Tucson for this year’s Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair (SARSEF), and a whopping total of 56 local projects took home at least one award.
With projects ranging from aloe vera’s effect on bacteria to the mitigation of local transportation issues and beyond, young Yumans put their knowledge on full display at the event.
R. Pete Woodard Junior High School science teacher Vicki Peterson oversaw her students’ projects.
One of Peterson’s students, 8th grader Alexis Batres, notably won the SARSEF Board of Directors Community Impact Award for her project on the dissolution of generic glucocorticoid steroids in patients with adrenal insufficiency.
“My student scientists did wonderful work this year, investigating important questions that matter to them and to the real world beyond their experiments. They are making a real difference,” Peterson told the Yuma Sun. “It is very rewarding to guide students to find answers to their own meaningful questions. All of the time and effort is so worth it when I have the joy of watching them receive recognition for the work they have done.”
Kofa High School biology teacher Jason Flora received the SARSEF Champion Educator of Science and Engineering honor.
“For me, winning Champion Educator of Science and Engineering is awesome and humbling all at the same time,” Flora said in a YUHSD press release. “I was grateful to go from two years ago having no Kofa students taking part in SARSEF, to this year having 10 students compete in a regional Science Fair competition and four of them winning different awards.”
According to the 2024 SARSEF Winners List, here’s the breakdown of the award-winning Yuma County projects:
• Cibola High School: 2
• Gila Ridge High School: 1
• Gowan Science Academy: 8
• Harvest Preparatory Academy: 32
• Kofa High School: 4
• Mesquite Elementary School: 1
• R. Pete Woodard Junior High School: 2
• San Luis High School: 3
• Vista High School: 1
• Yuma Catholic High School: 2
These 56 projects won between one and three awards each, showing that Yuma County had some strong representation at the event.
To check out the complete list of winners, visit SARSEF.org.