Over 120 science projects were entered in this year’s Territorial Science Fair competition for the Elementary Division, with aspiring local scientists proudly displaying their hard work through data and information presented to judges and browsers last week at the Gov. H. Rex Lee Auditorium.

Last year, Manumalo Academy made their presence known, sweeping the Top Three spots in overall standing for the 6- 8 grade levels. This year, the school hopes to do it again.

Six projects were entered from Manumalo Academy and all of them took first place awards for each of their respective categories:

• John “JM” Mirasol (Level K-2) First place in Engineering
• Ahllyana Villarica (Level 3-5) First place in Engineering
• Reulroy Luvu (Level 6-8) First place in Zoology
• Georgina Alofa (Level 6-8) First place in Botany
• William Spitzenberg (Level 6-8) First place in Engineering
• Jade Kruse (Level 6-8) First place in Physics

Altogether, there are fourteen categories. The overall winners are selected from a pool of those who placed highest in their categories.

The official announcement of overall standings for this year’s competition is yet to be made. The names will be announced today, during a special awards ceremony that was rescheduled from last Friday.

In addition to the elementary levels, Manumalo Academy also had three projects from their high school take home first place honors in their categories during the territorial high school competition, also held last week.

They are:

• Brodie Blizzard – First place in Engineering
• Dorvida Fuiava – First Place in Microbiology
• Aitulagi Alofa – First place in Environmental Science

Other entries from the Home of the Flames high school division included:

• Aomalu Masunu – Marine Science
• Hewlett DeLara – Technology
• Evelini Suani – Chemistry
• Keneferenisi Purcell – Zoology
• Kutori Temese – Medicine and Health

Students who enter the annual Territorial Science Fair competition are all winners already. After all, they had to win their school competition first, in order to move on to competing against other young scientists from around the territory.

The territorial competition, spearheaded by the Department of Education’s Office of Curriculum and Instruction, is open to all public and private schools on both Tutuila and Manu’a.

Dr. Joserose Jyothibhavanv, whose daughter Charu was consistently a winner during the science fair competitions before she graduated high school last year, is one of the coordinators for the competition.

Science Fair day is one of the biggest competitions for the territory’s school kids so naturally, students look forward to the chance to show off the results of their experiments on various topics including the Crown of Thorns, the amount of plastic in local soil, bacteria in water, algae bloom, how to address the local pothole problem, and the effects of smoking, among other things.

Judges and onlookers were amazed at the amount of time that was dedicated to the projects — obvious with the amount of data on the boards — and the information that was presented on the day of the competition.

It is the goal of the competition’s coordinators that projects are screened carefully, as technology has enabled entrants to plagiarize and copy things easily via the world wide web.