South River’s Anna Sappington is second, Broadneck’s Jacob Lettie third
North County High School sophomore Jack Andraka claimed his second consecutive grand award tonight at the 46th annual Anne Arundel County Regional Science and Engineering Fair.
Andraka shared the award last year for his project that developed a new detection method for pancreatic cancer. That project went on to win the $75,000 grand prize at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF).
This year, Andraka titled his project “The Tricorder: A Novel Raman Spectrometer for Real World Applications.” The 16-year-old has engineered a palm-sized device to sense a variety of chemicals in the environment with a wide variety of applications including detection of pancreatic cancer, environmental contaminants, and explosives.
South River High School sophomore Anna Sappington received the second-place grand award. Her project investigated Triclosan, a widely used chemical found in toothpaste, soaps, and disinfecting products, and its potential toxicity to aquatic invertebrate organisms. She will join Andraka at Intel ISEF in Phoenix, Ariz., in May.
Broadneck High School senior Jacob Lettie earned the third-place grand award for his mathematics project developing a definition of a mathematical quantity by his own intuitive means.
More than 300 projects presented by young science stars from across the county were entered in the fair. Students from throughout the county won awards and prizes worth thousands of dollars from organizations such as Anne Arundel Community College, Johns Hopkins University, Lockheed Martin, Marine Science and Technology, and Northrop Grumman.
“Our Science Fair is a great opportunity for students to play the ‘research game’ and show what they know about the enterprise of doing science,” said AACPS Coordinator of Science Rochelle Slutskin. “This year’s projects demonstrated great talent and creativity not only in the questions students asked, but in the depth of research involved.”
The Anne Arundel County Regional Science and Engineering Fair is dedicated to promoting science education and recognizing and rewarding student achievement in science. In addition to the grand award winners, 100 county middle and high school students earned first-place awards at the fair ranging from special awards from community organizations to category awards based on guidelines from Intel ISEF.