Students Join the CJUSD Science Fair

By: Ashley Dinkel

Staff Writer

Photo Courtesy of:

Jacquie Paul

Photo Description:

CJUSD Board Member Patt Haro (center) and her husband, Richard, interviewing a student at last year's science fair.

COLTON>> After working on projects to prepare for the 29th Annual Colton Joint Unified School District Science Fair, students in the district get their submissions judged on Saturday, Feb. 4 with a rewards ceremony on Monday, Feb. 6. Jacqueline Paul, Communications Specialist at CJUSD, said in a press release that a total of 175 projects from students in kindergarten through 12th grade have been entered into this year’s competition. The CJUSD website states there are 31 categories of subject matter such as electronics, biochemistry, zoology, microbiology and mathematics in which students conduct individually designed experiments throughout the year, prepare a comprehensive report of their results and then defend their results in dissertation style presentations before judges' expert in their field. School sites select participants from their school site science fairs to compete in the district level science fair. Winners from the district fair are selected to compete at the regional science fair. According to the website, many of the winning district students from the regional competition go on the California State Science Fair, BroadCom International Fair, INTEL International Fair and Google Science Fair competitions where thousands of dollars in scholarship money may be earned. Judging of the submissions is not open to the public but students in grades 6-12 will be interviewed by a panel of judges about their projects at Bloomington High School. The awards ceremony, which is open to the public, will take place from 6-8:30 p.m. on Feb. 6 in the Bloomington High School auditorium. District winners in grades 4-12 will advance to the SIM, or San Bernardino, Inyo and Mono counties, Science and Engineering Fair that is set to be held Tuesday, April 4 at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. Following the fair, the SIM Science and Engineering Fair Awards Ceremony will take place the next day at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 5 at the National Orange Show in the Valencia Room. Winners of the SIM fair advance to the California State Science Fair, which will take place April 24 and 25 at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.