Karry Roberts, Detroit Chapter

From Left: Xianggui (Harvey) Qu, Lance Heilbrun, Bern DeBacker, Nathan Soderborg, Alfred Hero, Ruth Cassidy, Julie Keros, Barry DeCicco, Karry Roberts, Frank Murdock, and Huiyong (Thomas) Zheng

Members of the Detroit and Ann Arbor chapters met as a special awards judging team at the Southeast Michigan Science Fair on March 11 to seek out excellent applications of statistics.

The team included 11 members from academic, medical, and industrial fields. They reviewed all the posters and gave special awards certificates to encourage the use of statistics in both the middle- and high-school categories.

Many students had creative ideas for their science projects, and the team found great graphs and analyses interpreting their data and explanations of the sources of variation in their experiments.

At increasing levels of statistical application, the judging team gave 48 certificates of recognition, 12 certificates of merit, and six awards of excellence. The posters honored with the award of excellence are the following:

The Role of Basil in Protecting Human Cells from Harmful Bacteria
Pioneer High School, Ann Arbor

The Effects of Catalyst Amount, Catalyst Concentration, and Temperature in the Briggs-Rauscher Oscillating Reaction
Huron High School, Ann Arbor

Effect of Topical Fluoride Application on Enamel Decay
Skyline High School, Ann Arbor

Zap Zone Laser Tag: Fair Fun?
Ann Arbor Open School, Ann Arbor

Soapy Water, Coke, or Sriracha: Which One Cleans Pennies the Best?
Forsythe Middle School, Ann Arbor

Testing Sugar in Soft Drinks
Clague Middle School, Ann Arbor

Award of excellence winners received a statistical book signed by all 11 judges; award of excellence and merit winners received a copy of Significance magazine; and all award winners received a certificate.

The Southeast Michigan Science Fair region includes schools from Livingston, Washtenaw, Monroe, Hillsdale, and Lenawee counties and is affiliated with the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Entries included 259 posters.