On May 20, seven Bellwood-Antis students travelled to Penn State University for the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Sciences (PJAS) state competition, and four students brought home first place awards.
Damien Barnett, Eric Johnson, Noah Cokrlic, Ian Clark, Hunter Shura, Jonathan Bickel, and Chance Hawk attended the competition.
Johnson, Clark, Cokrlic, and Hawk – all freshmen – each landed first place finishes.
“This group of PJAS students is one of the best I have had the privilege of working with,” Mr. Goodman, the group’s advisor, said.
Clark became only the third student in Bellwood-Antis history to achieve a perfect score at the state finals.
“It feels great,” Clark said, whose project sought to determine whether labels on drink products affected people’s perceptions of taste. “All of the work that I put in and all of the help I got from Mr. Goodman has paid off, and it feels really amazing.”
The team was advised by both Mr. Goodman and Ms. Shimmel.
“My students worked really hard to achieve their well deserved awards. I’m very proud of them,” Mr. Goodman said.
The students have been working on their presentations for months, beginning in the second marking period, which began in January.
“A lot of practice and a little bit of public speaking experience, “Clark said when reflecting on the skills that earned him so much success at the state competition. “The ability to not get overwhelmed in front of a group of people is very helpful.”
The group had qualified for the state finals by winning at the regional competition held at Saint Francis University in February. The contest requires students to develop a unique scientific experiment and present their findings to a panel of judges that reviews their study.
Barnett presented an experiment that asked which fruit makes the best battery; Cokrlic sought to determine if talking to plants helps them grow; Hawk’s experiment studied which fin design enables a rocket to go the highest; Johnson studied which bread molds the slowest; and Shura created a project to find which fishing line is the strongest.
At PJAS, places are decided by standards of excellence. A category could have several first place finishers, but no one earns a first award without meeting a litany of rigorous expectations.
