Southern Utah Science & Engineering Fair

Brittany decided to participate in the Southern Utah Science and Engineering Fair (SUSEF) last Friday.  This year was the first year she could participate, since it’s for grades 5-12.  They separate it into a Junior Fair and a Senior Fair.

SUSEF Junior Fair is a regional science competition sponsored by Southern Utah University for students in grades 5-8.  It was open to all students in about 20 different school districts from around our area.

It started out as an early morning since she had to have her project set up by 8:30 in the morning.  After picking up her packet, we set up her project, and then looked around at some of the other projects as they were getting set up.  At 9 am, they kicked out all the students, so they could check for safety violations.  Brittany and I decided to go to the library and work on some homework.

At 10:00, we could go back in, and the students needed to sit with their projects and be ready to present their projects to the judges.  In the next 2 hours, Brittany presented her project about 4 times.  I had lots of time to look at all the other projects in the room, and found them quite interesting.  12:00, all the junior fair projects came down, and it was time for lunch.  The University provided lunch for all the Science Fair participants, but Brittany wanted KFC instead, so there we went.  We were happy that Scott and Thomas were able to join us for lunch.

At 1:30, you could go to the Science building for some science activities, or head to the Sharwan Smith Theatre for a movie.  Brittany wanted to see the movie, and it was Back To The Future!  Boy, did that throw me back to 1985! 🙂

After the movie, it was time to go to the Great Hall for the Awards Ceremony.  Brittany didn’t expect to win anything, but we wanted to go anyways.  She was pretty happy when she got a package of pens that were being thrown out to the crowd.  They had raffle tickets as well, and although she came very close to having her number called…no such luck.

We were quite surprised when Brittany’s name got called among 20 other students to participate in The 2009 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge.  She had to go on stage to get her invitation.  There were lots more awards given out, and then they got to the Category Awards.  I thought that Brittany might have had a chance here, for 3rd or maybe even 2nd.  They started out with 3rd place, and when they got to her category, her name wasn’t called.  2nd place came, and her fellow classmate won a silver medal in her category!  We were so thrilled!

1st place announcements came, and we were shocked when Brittany’s name was called for her category!  We both just looked at each other, like, “Did they really just call your name?”  But it was true!!  Brittany won a 1st place gold medal for her project in Physics and Astronomy! She also received a 4GB flash drive.  Even when she came to sit back down, it didn’t seem real that she was wearing a gold medal!  She had the biggest smile in the world! 🙂

It was a very long day since we didn’t get back home until 6:30 from the awards ceremony, but it was well worth it for Brittany in the end!  We are so proud of her!!!  Way to go, Brittany!! 🙂

To see all the pictures from the SUU Regional Science Fair, please click here!