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   › SCIENCE FAIR
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Los Angeles County District wide Science Fair

Caitlin Adams reports on the second annual LAUSD Science Fair, held at the Wallis Annenberg Science Building at the California Science Center.

By Caitlin Adams
USC Annengerg

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Angela Okwo explains how the idea for the science fair originated.
Photo: Caitlin Adams

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The Wallis Annenberg Building for Science Learning and Innovation includes 10 classrooms, several labs and prep rooms, and this open atrium, complete with bamboo garden.
Photo courtesy of California Science Center

Aspiring young scientists have the chance to shine this week as preliminary judging began today for the Lo Angeles Unified School District Science Fair.

"We started by thinking about students, what can we do to generate more excitement about science learning," said Angela Okwo, a science advisor to the district and organizer of the fair. "So we came up with the idea of having students work on projects."

Held at the California Science Center, the Fair is in its second year, showcasing projects from the district's high school and middle school students, some as as young as eleven years old.

"The interest really has grown a lot, because last year we started with ten schools, ten middle and high schools, but this year we have twenty-five schools," said Okwo.

With over four hundred projects submitted by the 25 participating schools, evaluating the projects is a hefty task. Teams of judges consisting of educators and graduate students are asked to evaluate the projects on creativity, scientific thought, clarity, and thoroughness.

Suzanne Edmands is a professor at USC in the Biological Sciences. She was invited to judge the fair and chose to evaluate botany projects.

"Probably the most interesting thing is their logbooks, because they go into detail about day-by-day – what they did each day, and it’s interesting to see, they’re budding scientists actually recording their data,” Edmands said.

Students with high-rated projects will be invited for oral interviews tomorrow, and the top submissions will be sent on to the Los Angeles County Science Fair to compete.