Colorado State University Hosts State’s 47th Science Fair Competition

More than 200 top junior and senior high school science students will compete in the 47th Colorado Science and Engineering Fair April 11-13 at Colorado State University’s Lory Student Center in Fort Collins. Nobel Prize winner Carl Wieman and state Sen. Stan Matsunaka will be on hand to welcome and honor the participants of Colorado’s annual state science fair competition.

"Colorado State University is proud to host the state’s brightest young science and engineering scholars for the 2002 science and engineering fair," said Cortney Butler, fair director and assistant to the director at Colorado State’s Center for Science and Mathematics Technology Education. "We encourage the public to visit the fair on Friday and Saturday to witness the amazing projects created by these young scientists."

Student exhibitions will be open to the public for viewing in the main ballroom of the Lory Student Center from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. April 12 and 9-11 a.m. April 13. Students will be available to discuss and display their projects on Saturday only.

Wieman, a recent 2001 Nobel Prize winner in physics for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation, will serve as the science and engineering fair’s guest speaker, addressing competitors on Friday morning. Last year’s top Colorado science fair winner, Grand Junction senior Ryan Patterson, will follow Wieman with a presentation about his experiences since winning the 2001 competition.

Patterson went on to win the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair and also placed first in the Siemens-Westinghouse Science and Technology Competition, being rewarded with $100,000 and earning a trip to the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. Patterson additionally received national media recognition for the computerized sign language translator glove he designed and developed for the state competition.

Colorado State Senate President Matsunaka, a Colorado State alumnus, will conclude Friday’s festivities by honoring this year’s winners at an awards ceremony.

About 260 exhibits will be presented in the areas of botany, Earth and space sciences, engineering, environmental sciences, health and behavioral sciences, mathematics and computer sciences, microbiology, physical science, zoology and a team interdisciplinary category. The student finalists for the state competition have been chosen from previous Colorado regional science fairs, where as many as 2,000 students participated.

Students will be competing for a variety of prizes, with the top two exhibitors winning an all-expense paid trip to represent Colorado at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in May in Louisville, Ky. Established in 1956, the Colorado State Science Fair is a private, non-profit organization that sponsors the statewide competition and is the final event in a year-long sequence of local and regional science fairs.

Private organizations, corporations, government agencies and universities financially support the fair. In addition to sponsorship, organizations provide special awards to outstanding student exhibits. More than 40 businesses, professional societies and government agencies provide 120 representatives to judge the exhibits based on criteria of the awarding organization. The organizations present several awards including college scholarships, offers of summer employment, field trips, cash, savings bonds and calculators.

For more information, contact Butler at (970) 498-4121 or David Clark at (303) 497-6215.