Space
Grant scholarship enlivens science fair
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| Jay Staker (left), ISGC associate director, Adam Forshier, 2003 first-place ISGC scholarship winner, and Heather LeFleur, second-place ISGC winner. (Third-place winner Sara Weirather is not pictured.) |
The $5000 undergraduate
tuition scholarship offered by the Iowa
Space Grant Consortium (ISGC) has made the State
Science and Technology Fair of Iowa a more exciting event. Since 1993, the
ISGC has offered the scholarship to the student with the outstanding high school
senior science project at the fair, which is held every spring at Iowa
State University.
"This is the largest single scholarship/award offered at the fair,"
said Jay Staker, ISGC associate director
and program director of E-SET
(Extension - Science, Engineering & Technology), "so it's not surprising
that it generates so much buzz." Entries for the 2003 science fair totaled
421 students in grades 6-12.
To be eligible, a student must be a U.S. citizen and an Iowa resident who has
been accepted for full admission to one of the ISGC academic institutions: Drake
University, Iowa State University,
the University of Iowa and the University
of Northern Iowa. The student must be majoring in an approved field of study,
which is a broad interpretation of disciplines that can be related to aeronautics
and space.
Since the first award was given by then-ISGC director Wallace Sanders, it was
the ISGC's desire to give the biggest prize at the fair in order to attract
more high school seniors to the event, according to William
Byrd, current director of the ISGC. "We have been rewarded with some
really good students over the years through this program."
For the past two years, the ISGC has also been offering two $100 prizes at the
middle school level: one to the winner of the Physical Sciences category and
one to the winner of the Life Sciences category. "We want to encourage
students to participate in the fair and to continue competing through senior
high," Staker said.
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The
caliber of the senior scholarship-winning projects is extraordinarily high,
according to Staker. "Last year, for example, the winning project focused
on wind energy. Adam Forshier, then a senior at West Central Valley High in
Stuart and now an ISU freshman majoring in mechanical engineering, researched
for four years how wind turbines can be made more efficient." During that
time, Forshier tested different windmill configurations, tested the effect of
blade pitch on performance as well as on electrical output, set up a wind tunnel
to test 19 different blade designs at two different wind speeds, and examined
the effect of blade number on efficiency.
"Obviously, we want to encourage students to follow their interests in
the sciences and technology," said Staker, "and to help them fulfill
their potential. The science fair offers them a challenge that helps them stretch
their abilities to the next level."
Staker now chairs the fair's advisory board and his involvement with the day-to-day
operations has increased. "One of our goals is to increase the number and
type of schools involved," he said, noting that students in grades 6-12
can now compete. "We're also trying to determine the best way to assess
the effectiveness of the fair."
A list of winners of the science fair ISGC tuition scholarship, the date of
the award and the school the winner selected to attend follows.
Name
Date of Award
School Attended
Karin H. Wilhelm
March 1993
ISU
Laura C. Schmitt
April 1994
U of I
Nathan D. Holmes
April 1995
ISU
Justin W. Wilhelm
March 1996
ISU
Courtney W. McCauley
May 1997
ISU
Stacy J. Anthony
March 1998
U of I
Brooke A. Findley
March 1999
Drake
Elizabeth S. Brown
June 2000
U of I
Amber M. Hohl
March 2001
ISU
Christopher J. Nelson
April 2002
ISU
Adam L. Forshier
March 2003
ISU
Heather K. LeFleur
March 2003
ISU
Sara J. Weirather
March 2003
Drake