On Thursday, January 14, 2016, students from Phoenix and of the Central High Schools were at Illinois Institute of Technology for the 2016 Regional Networks Science Fair. With 14 students from PMA entering the fair, 13 advanced to the City Wide Science Fair.

Preparing for the fair was very excruciating for the students. Often times they stayed late after school trying to perfect their experiments, boards, and review of literature papers. The week of the fair, many stayed past ten P.M. working hard on their projects.

Sophomore Artisteo Martinez said, “Staying late after school preparing for the regional science fair was easier compared to last year, but we still had to work hard to get our projects to look good,” his experiment is about “randomness,probability and the Chaos Theory.”

The chairpersons of the network for the central region is Mrs. Tobias and Dr. Jaji. They are in charge of making sure all the teachers from each school had all the necessary work for the students that were going to compete in the science fair.

“Dr. Jaji and Mrs.Tobias have helped me in many ways. Dr. Jaji  looked over my papers and made sure my board and everything else was presentable. Mrs. Tobias did the same; she has looked at my paper very attentively. She also makes sure that the board and paper look as close to perfect as they can be,” said Martinez. “They both make sure I know my stuff for presentations and that that hard work and dedication pay off.”

During the science fair, students from all over the region waited as the judges finished grading their papers. The judges talked to them after they were done. The judges looked at every students board and  judge whether the student was doing well with their experiments.

There were some judges that were annoyed with the students work because it was not in the proper format. The science fair research should be in APA style format and some students did not do their work correctly. This sets an example of how students need to learn how to properly format their work and it prepares them for college.

“What I can do to improve my research and experiments is to conduct more trials. What I can also do is expand my Review of Literature,” said sophomore Abigail Pio, whose experiment focuses on “investigate if all brands of sunscreen provide the same protection while claiming to have the same level of SPF.”

There were many students that will be going to the city wide science fair. Now the students have to focus on making more trials for each of their experiments. These students have to better their work and hope they move on to the state wide science fair.  

“I feel extremely excited to be given the opportunity to go to the City Science Fair,” said Pio. “I am so thankful of having my parents, Ms. Tobias, Dr. Jaji, Mr. Surina, Ms. Lentynsks, Mr. Bernthal, Mr. Edwards, and my peers for supporting me throughout the whole journey to be able to attend City Science Fair.”

The students received help from many staff members at Phoenix such as: math and science teachers, Mrs. Tobias, and Mr. Surina. All of students’ work was accomplished and they will do great at the city wide competition in March 2016.