Center High School CBST Research Teams win first and second place in the Senior Team Science division of the Sacramento Regional Science and Engineering Fair.

On Saturday, March 18 at Cal Expo, two Center High School science research teams stood at attention by their posters, lab notebooks, and research papers and fielded challenging questions from a host of judges at the Sacramento Regional Science and Engineering Fair.  The participating students from Center High School in Antelope are in their second year of the CBST-sponsored after school program, the High School Research Academy in Biophotonics.  Their investment in and ownership of the projects paid off – they won first and second place in the Senior Team Science category!

First place went to the project, "Retarding the Growth of Escherichia coli with Varying Light Wavelengths" by Anna Vasilchenko (left in photo), Angelique Moore (center), and  Ziyeda Sidikov (right).  Their study investigated the impact of different wavelengths of light on bacterial growth (E.coli) with some surprising results!



Second place was awarded to Crystal Charity (left in photo), Nikita Singh (right), and Ashley Rubin (not shown) for their project, "Mice and their Reaction to Light" which exposed mice to varying light conditions and measured their efficiency in running a maze under those conditions.  Implications for their study reach into any behavioral studies done with mice!  This group also won the MESA award.



To say the least, we are proud of these accomplishments and acknowledge the students, advisor (Michael Wright) and undergraduate high school mentors (Martha Kimber and Michael Torres) for their devotion and dedication to bringing biophotonics and authentic science research experiences to these kids.  Hard work, team work, innovation and persistence pays off!