Science Research sent 27 students to the St. Joseph’s College High School Poster Session and brought back five awards on February 4.
    Over 70 participants from five schools congregated at 9 AM on the Saturday morning at the college to set up their poster presentations. The one-day competition lasted from 9am to 1pm. Many of the Midwood participants were nervous about their first poster competition.
“It was our first time presenting the results of our research to outsiders, so I was pretty nervous about it. I didn’t feel very confident because I was afraid that I was going to mess up, but my partner gave me a lot of support, and I felt really grateful to have him there with me,” said Irene He ‘12.
Mert Keceli ‘12 said, “I was a bit nervous when the judges came, but once I started talking about my project, I wasn’t as nervous. I liked telling the judges about what we worked on for the last year. I knew what I was talking about, and I tried to explain my project as best as I could.”
    The two hour long judging session started at 9:30 AM. Each participant had to be judged at least twice by a scientist familiar with the field. Some students stood there for over an hour until they got their first judge while others were done in the first 30 minutes.
    “I was nervous at first because I felt like judges knew more about what I was talking about than I did. I felt more at ease when presenting to my third set of audience because I kept improving my presentation each time,” said Amy Chen ‘12.
Every participant received a certificate of participation and each winner received their respective award. First and second prize winners received $75 and $50 Barnes and Noble gift cards, respectively.
Tammy Jiang ‘12 received first prize, Emilee Yang ‘12, Amanda Ye ‘12, and Jacinda Zhou ‘12 received second prize, and Amy Chen ‘12, Matthew Chin ‘12 and Irene He ‘12, and Tianna Chin ‘12 received honorable ‘mentions.
Research Coordinator, Mr. Glenn Elert said, “We did well? No, we did outstanding. I didn’t know we were going to do so well. I expected about three winners like last year, but this year we had eight people winning.”