tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45637154381570227072024-03-13T06:21:59.270-07:00Google Science Fairewoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341551220176883769noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-80393643898247846612013-01-31T09:20:00.000-08:002020-06-15T21:31:05.560-07:00Google Science Fair 2013 has launched<i>(Important note: <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/+GoogleScienceFair/posts" target="_blank">The Google Science Fair Google+ page</a> is now the official home of all news and announcements related to the competition. This blog will no longer be updated. <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/+GoogleScienceFair/posts" target="_blank">Add the Science Fair to a circle today</a> to find out about the 2013 competition, get tips about entering, and tune in to weekly hangouts with mentors, famous scientists, and more!)</i><br />
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At age 16, <a href="https://www.googlesciencefair.com/en/2013/science-heroes?bookmark=science-heroes-matrix-3">Louis Braille</a> invented an alphabet for the blind. When she was 13, <a href="https://www.googlesciencefair.com/en/2013/science-heroes?bookmark=science-heroes-matrix-9">Ada Lovelace</a> became fascinated with math and went on to write the first computer program. And at 18, <a href="https://www.googlesciencefair.com/en/2013/science-heroes?bookmark=science-heroes-matrix-1">Alexander Graham Bell</a> started experimenting with sound and went on to invent the telephone. Throughout history many great scientists developed their curiosity for science at an early age and went on to make groundbreaking discoveries that changed the way we live. <br />
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Today, we’re launching the third annual Google Science Fair in partnership with CERN, the LEGO Group, National Geographic and Scientific American to find the next generation of scientists and engineers. We’re inviting students ages 13-18 to participate in the largest online science competition and submit their ideas to change the world.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3Rqcg7BJwJM" width="560"></iframe><br />
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For the past two years, thousands of students from more than 90 countries have submitted research projects that address some of the most challenging problems we face today. Previous winners tackled issues such as the <a href="http://youtu.be/DcSWmoiLhzY">early diagnosis of breast cancer</a>, <a href="http://youtu.be/l80bxaFrQuM">improving the experience of listening to music for people with hearing loss</a> and <a href="http://youtu.be/88D1teLvZE8">cataloguing the ecosystem found in water</a>. This year we hope to once again inspire scientific exploration among young people and receive even more entries for our third competition. <br />
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Here’s some key information for this year’s Science Fair:<br />
<ul>
<li>Students can enter the Science Fair in <a href="https://www.googlesciencefair.com/en/2013/faqs?bookmark=faqs-accordion-46">13 languages</a>.</li>
<li>The deadline for submissions is April 30, 2013 at 11:59 pm PDT.</li>
<li>In June, we’ll recognize 90 regional finalists (30 from the Americas, 30 from Asia Pacific and 30 from Europe/Middle East/Africa).</li>
<li>Judges will then select the top 15 finalists, who will be flown to Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. for our live, final event on September 23, 2013.</li>
<li>At the finals, a <a href="https://www.googlesciencefair.com/en/2013/judging">panel of distinguished international judges</a> consisting of renowned scientists and tech innovators will select top winners in each age category (13-14, 15-16, 17-18). One will be selected as the Grand Prize winner.</li>
</ul>
<a href="https://www.googlesciencefair.com/en/2013/prizes">Prizes</a> for the 2013 Science Fair include a $50,000 scholarship from Google, a trip to the Galapagos with National Geographic Expeditions, experiences at CERN, Google or the LEGO Group and digital access to the Scientific American archives for the winner’s school for a year. Scientific American will also award a <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/science-in-action/">$50,000 Science in Action prize</a> to one project that makes a practical difference by addressing a social, environmental or health issue. We’re also introducing two new prizes for 2013:<br />
<ul>
<li>In August, the public will have the opportunity to get to know our 15 finalists through a series of Google+ Hangouts on Air and will then vote for the Inspired Idea Award—an award selected by the public for the project with the greatest potential to change the world.</li>
<li>We also recognize that behind every great student there’s often a great teacher and a supportive school, so this year we’ll award a $10,000 cash grant from Google and an exclusive Google+ Hangout with CERN to the Grand Prize winner’s school.</li>
</ul>
Lastly, we’ll also be hosting a series of <a href="https://plus.google.com/+GoogleScienceFair">Google+ Hangouts on Air</a>. Taking place on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, these Hangouts will feature renowned scientists including inventor Dean Kamen and oceanographic explorer Fabien Cousteau, showcase exclusive behind-the-scenes tours of cutting-edge labs and science facilities, and provide access to judges and the Google Science Fair team. We hope these Google+ Hangouts will help inspire, mentor and support students throughout the competition and beyond.<br />
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Visit <a href="http://www.googlesciencefair.com/">www.googlesciencefair.com</a> to get started now—your idea might just change the world.<br />
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<span class="byline-author">Posted by Sam Peter, Google Science Fair Team</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-43660619628034300742012-07-23T22:49:00.003-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.254-07:00The winners of the 2012 Google Science FairTwenty-one of the world’s brightest young scientists gathered at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View today to celebrate their achievements and present their projects to a panel of <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/judging.html">renowned judges</a> at the Google Science Fair finals.
Chosen from thousands of projects from more than 100 countries, these <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/finalists.html">top 15 projects</a> impressed the judges and public with their breadth of topics: from cancer research to vertical farming, 3D electronics to dementia. It was a tough decision, but we’re proud to name these three projects the winners of this year’s Google Science Fair:
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<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">13-14 age category:<b> Jonah Kohn</b> (USA)—“Good Vibrations: Improving the Music Experience for People with Hearing Loss Using Multi-Frequency Tactile Sound.” By creating a device that converts sound into tactile vibrations, Jonah’s project attempts to provide the hearing impaired with an improved experience of music.
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<li><span style="background-color: white;">15-16 age category: <b>Iván Hervías Rodríguez, Marcos Ochoa and Sergio Pascual</b> (Spain)—“La Vida Oculta del Agua (The Secret Life of Water).” Iván, Marcos and Sergio studied hidden microscopic life in fresh water, documenting the organisms that exist in a drop of water, and how those organisms influence our environment.
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<li><span style="background-color: white;">17-18 age category <i>AND</i> Grand Prize Winner:<b> Brittany Wenger</b> (USA)—“Global Neural Network Cloud Service for Breast Cancer.” Brittany’s project harnesses the power of the cloud to help doctors accurately diagnose breast cancer. Brittany built an application that compares individual test results to an extensive dataset stored in the cloud, allowing doctors to assess tumors using a minimally-invasive procedure. </span></li>
</ul>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8wMfcmh-cKw/UA42QlYmONI/AAAAAAAAAQY/rkFsC4grVw8/s1600/GSF+Winners-3003.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8wMfcmh-cKw/UA42QlYmONI/AAAAAAAAAQY/rkFsC4grVw8/s400/GSF+Winners-3003.jpeg" width="400" /></a><br />
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Each of the winners will receive <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/prizes.html">prizes</a> from Google and our Science Fair partners: CERN, LEGO, National Geographic and <i>Scientific American</i>. This evening, we also recognized Sakhiwe Shongwe and Bonkhe Mahlalela, from Swaziland, the winners of the <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/science-in-action/"><i>Scientific American</i> Science in Action award</a>.<br />
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The judges were impressed with the quality of all the projects this year—and by the ingenuity, dedication and passion of the young scientists who created them. We applaud every contestant who submitted a project to the 2012 Google Science Fair and look forward to seeing the innovations, inventions and discoveries of young scientists in the years to come.<br />
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<i style="background-color: white;">Posted by Cristin Frodella, Google in Education</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-8672105901973844672012-07-18T13:15:00.002-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.581-07:00My visit to CERN<b id="internal-source-marker_0.5390242841094732" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #545659; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last week, Shree Bose, the grand prize winner of the 2011 Google Science Fair, traveled to CERN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland as part of the grand prize. We invited Shree to write about her experience. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The name CERN is derived from the acronym for the French Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“We got it.” The Director General paused, and the cramped room I was in burst into applause. Chills ran up my spine, as I looked around at the faces of the people of CERN who had worked for years to hear those three words. A particle similar in properties to the expected Higgs Boson had been found. And I had been at CERN to see its discovery announced to the world.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></b><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aNh6YHQhtlE/UAcAT-L9iXI/AAAAAAAAAQA/J-zRWbAUPYg/s1600/Shree_ALICE_cavern_f.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="210" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aNh6YHQhtlE/UAcAT-L9iXI/AAAAAAAAAQA/J-zRWbAUPYg/s320/Shree_ALICE_cavern_f.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.5390242841094732" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shree Bose in the ALICE Cavern. Photo source: </span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://alicematters.web.cern.ch/shree_bose">http://alicematters.web.cern.ch/shree_bose</a></span></b></td></tr>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tim Vernes-Lee first came up with his proposal for the world wide web while working at CERN, a one page paper with a typed diagram showing his framework that is still on display today in the visitor center. His professor at the time scribbled three words at the top in black ink, three words that would go on to describe so much more than he could have ever imagined - “vague but exciting.” Making history is what CERN does best.</span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My ten days at CERN were full of learning more about physics than I had ever learned in my life, from people who were passionate and excited about the work they were doing. With a 27 km long collider complete with four huge detectors, particle physicists and engineers were often seen walking around wearing construction equipment and hard hats. It usually took me a second before I remembered that they were working on the subatomic scale, colliding protons at close to the speed of light. From these collisions, these physicists were recreating the conditions of the collisions, figuring out what particles were being released and eventually bringing us one step closer to understanding where we began, what we are made of, and where the universe is going. </span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And there couldn’t have been a better time to visit. During a technical stop the first week, we were able to go down to the detectors, these behemoth four story machines where the proton-proton collisions happen and are recorded, and down to the tunnel where the beam pipe was right beside us. It was hard to believe that, when the collider was running, clusters of protons were shot through at close to the speed of light. Some of the coldest temperatures in the universe, required for the superconducting magnets to function, were achieved by liquefying helium. We got to visit the computer farms, where thousands of computers hummed, processing massive amounts of data recorded by the detectors. We met people who were creating antimatter which annihilated upon contact with matter just as they did in the moments after the Big Bang, talked to a theoretical physicist about dark matter, learned about proton-gluon plasma created from colliding heavy ions from the people of the ALICE experiment, learned about the beauty particle at the LHCb project, and found out what ATLAS and CMS were doing to find evidence for the Higgs Boson.</span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During the weekends, we got to go sightseeing, visiting Chamonix, a beautiful small mountain village in the French Alps, and across Lake Geneva to visit the medieval castles of Yvoire. During one evening, we ate a delicious home-cooked meal of pasta and seafood with our wonderful CERN guide, Silvano de Gennaro, in his house he had renovated from an old barn in the Jurra Mountains overlooking Geneva as a full moon hung over the cloudless sky. His wife, Michelle, was a member of Les Horribles Cernettes, a musical group whose album cover had been the first picture on the internet, and we got to see videos of the de Genarro family band rocking out. Perfect moments like that are just so surreal. </span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The day before the seminar, you could feel the energy among the people of CERN as people excitedly whispered amongst themselves about their plans for the next day. I was sitting in the communications office when Peter Higgs, one of the physicists behind the creation of the standard model, came in for an interview. When asked about the upcoming announcement of the results, he said he couldn’t believe he was alive to see this day. I couldn’t believe I was watching history be made right before me. </span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After the seminar and the press conference we got to sit in on, it was a whirlwind of visiting experiments specialized on the medical applications of the technologies, and before we knew it, we had said goodbye to Silvano while standing in the rain at CERN, and it was the morning of our flight. As our plane took off, headed first to London and then to DFW, I couldn’t help thinking about how much I’d learned - about the physics, about its potential for the the future, and most of all, about the power of the group effort at CERN. One mind alone is an incredible thing. But so many minds working together can really do the impossible. I guess the world of particle physics and the entire future of science is, as three simple words can put it, vague but exciting. </span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jQSmmGm2_1g/UAcZMZgpEhI/AAAAAAAAAQM/gUOIU5EQpw0/s1600/Shree_LHC_family_f.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="215" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jQSmmGm2_1g/UAcZMZgpEhI/AAAAAAAAAQM/gUOIU5EQpw0/s320/Shree_LHC_family_f.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'Helvetica Nueue', 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, 'Nimbus Sans L', FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 9px; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;">Shree Bose and her family in the LHC tunnel. </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 11px; text-align: -webkit-auto; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Photo source: </span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11px; text-align: -webkit-auto; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://alicematters.web.cern.ch/shree_bose">http://alicematters.web.cern.ch/shree_bose</a>
</span></td></tr>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.5390242841094732" style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can read more about Shree’s trip </span><a href="http://alicematters.web.cern.ch/shree_bose"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></b><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- The Google Science Fair Team </span></b><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-15425080196956646522012-06-14T11:57:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.104-07:00Google Science Fair judging – finding the top 15<i>Editor's note: We've invited guest blogger Jemma Best to provide feedback from the judges. Jemma is a project manager from EdComs, the organization that coordinated the judging process.</i><br />
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After months of planning and preparation, the judging team was raring to go when the submission deadline for the 2012 competition finally arrived.<br />
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The preliminary judges enjoyed a hectic but fascinating April reading thousands of amazing entries submitted by young scientists in over one hundred countries to identify 90 outstanding regional finalists. The judges felt that the overall standard this year was even higher than in 2011, with more entries of very high quality to evaluate. In addition to scoring high in the judging criteria, the judges found that the best entries also:<br />
<ul>
<li>surprised and excited the judges</li>
<li>were inspiring and clearly expressed</li>
<li>demonstrated meticulous scientific method</li>
<li>adhered to the judging criteria for each section</li>
<li>clearly addressed the question and hypothesis</li>
<li>could make a positive difference</li>
<li>demonstrated the entrants’ enthusiasm for their work</li>
</ul>
In May, academics and experts from high profile scientific organizations met in London to evaluate and select the 15 exceptional individuals or teams with the highest scoring projects, who will be flown to Google headquarters in California for a celebratory Science Fair event and the <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/judging.html">final round of judging</a>. Selecting the top 15 from such a strong pool was both an honor and a real challenge for our panel, who went away inspired by the entrants’ achievements.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4nxCXU4iIw8/T9ozkShCP5I/AAAAAAAAH8o/BtJ1I9zmgCw/s1600/judging_vint.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4nxCXU4iIw8/T9ozkShCP5I/AAAAAAAAH8o/BtJ1I9zmgCw/s400/judging_vint.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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We’re very excited about meeting the top 15 in California, where the judges will select the Google Science Fair 2012 winners. <br />
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Jemma Best<br />
Google Science Fair Judging Panel Coordinator<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-33081627004640578192012-06-06T06:21:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.219-07:0015 Google Science Fair Finalists and the Science in Action winners are off to Mountain View<b id="internal-source-marker_0.1084974417462945"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s been a fascinating two weeks for our Google Science Fair judges. They’ve been reviewing projects which try to solve myriad problems—from </span><a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/projects/gsf63.html" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">helping people with hearing loss enjoy music</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to </span><a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/projects/gsf14.html" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">saving water with vacuflush toilets</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—and they’ve been blown away by the inventiveness of the world’s young scientists. Today, they’ve selected </span><a href="http://www.google.com/sciencefair" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">15 finalists</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> from our top 90 regional finalists. All of these students asked interesting questions; many focused on real-world problems and some produced groundbreaking science that challenged current conventions. </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After much deliberation we’re happy to announce the 15 finalists:</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Age 13 - 14</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sumit Singh, India</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sakhiwe Shongwe and Bonkhe Mahlalela, Swaziland</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alexy Klozkov and Milena Klimenko, Ukraine</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Martin Schneider and Joshua Li, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jonah Kohn, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Age 15 - 16</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rohit Fenn, India</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Iván Hervías Rodríguez, Marcos Ochoa and Sergio Pascua, Spain</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sabera Talukder, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Catherine Wong, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kimberley Yu and Phillip Yu, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Age 17 - 18</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yassine Bouanane, Canada</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Raghavendra Ramachanderan, India</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Melvin Zammit, Malta</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brittany Wenger, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yamini Naidu, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In July, these finalists will be coming to Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., to present their projects to our international panel of </span><a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/events/sciencefair/judging.html" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">finalist judges</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and compete for </span><a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/events/sciencefair/prizes.html" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">prizes</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that include $100,000 in scholarship funds, a trip to the Galapagos Islands and more. The winners will be announced at our celebration gala beginning at 7:00 p.m. PDT July 23 and the event will be streamed live on our </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/googlesciencefair" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #000099; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">YouTube channel</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, so make sure to tune in.</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In addition, this year one of our partners, Scientific American, is awarding </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a special</span><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/science-in-action" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Science in Action</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> prize to a project that addresses a social, environmental, ethical, health or welfare issue to make a practical difference to the lives of a group or community. After careful deliberation by Scientific American’s independent</span><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/science-in-action/" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">judging panel</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, we are thrilled to announce that </span><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sakhiwe Shongwe and Bonkhe Mahlalela from Swaziland are the winners of this award for their </span><a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/projects/gsf31.html" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">project</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which explores an affordable way to provide hydroponics to poor subsistence farmers. In addition to the $50,000 in prize funds, Shongwe and Bonkhe will have access to a year’s mentorship to explore how their project can help the lives of subsistence farmers in Swaziland and around the world. They are also still in the running for their age category prize and the grand prize. </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Congratulations to all the finalists and the Scientific American Science in Action winners. We look forward to meeting you all at Google in July. </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sam Peter, Google Science Fair Team</span></b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-35684563855109041332012-05-21T06:00:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.231-07:00Announcing the 90 Regional Finalists of the Google Science Fair 2012<b id="internal-source-marker_0.046355593018233776"><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Congratulations to the regional finalists of the second</span><a href="http://www.google.com/sciencefair"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Google Science Fair</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">! These </span><a href="http://www.google.com/sciencefair"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">top 90 entries </span></a><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">from around the world represent some incredibly innovative and groundbreaking science. </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This year’s competition was even more international and diverse than last year. We had thousands of entries from more than 100 countries, and topics ranging from</span><span style="color: red; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="https://sites.google.com/a/googlesciencefair.com/science-fair-2012-project-f7f0369ac3dc7f91dfb2e9a23ef5e0893fb7c5db-1332942572-16/home"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">improving recycling using LEGO robots</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to</span><span style="color: red; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="https://sites.google.com/a/googlesciencefair.com/science-fair-2012-project-25d8c93e1b75e7f439c3edc88dc502bcb763620c-1333069625-12/home"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">treating cancer with a substance created by bees</span></a><span style="color: red; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to</span><span style="color: red; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="https://sites.google.com/a/googlesciencefair.com/science-fair-2012-project-ahjzfnnjawvuy2vmywlyltiwmtjydwssb1byb2ply3qy1oqida/home"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tackling meth abuse.</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Our </span><a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/judging.html"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">judges</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> were impressed by the quality of the projects, and it was no easy task to evaluate the creativity, scientific merit and global relevance of each submission to narrow down the entries to just 90 finalists. </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thirteen of our 90 finalists have also been nominated for the </span><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/science-in-action/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scientific American</span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Science in Action award</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the winner of which will be announced on June 6 along with our 15 finalists. These top 15 and the Science in Action winner will be flown out to Google’s headquarters in California in July for our celebratory finalist event and for the last round of judging, which will be conducted by our panel of </span><a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/judging.html"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">renowned scientists and innovators</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, let’s get excited for the results! </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The regional finalists in each of the three age categories are:</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ASIA (Age 13 - 14) </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sadanand Patil, India</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Utkarsh Gupta, India </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anjan Venkatesh, India</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aravind Muraleedharan, India</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nitya Raju, India</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aditya Jain, India</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sumit Singh, India</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ayushi Khedkar, Shraddha Kukade, Pournima Shinde, India</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nihar dalal, India</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shravan Patankar, Abhishek Dedhe, India</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ASIA (Age 15 - 16) <br class="kix-line-break" /><b><span style="font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Ivan Jie Xiong Ang, Malaysia</span></b></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marco Ochsner, Ludwig Hruza, Singapore</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Edith Loo, Li Yin Tan, Singapore</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rohit Fenn, India</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hamza Azhar, Pakistan</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Benjamin Chan, Paul Jeanbart, Singapore</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Xi Xu, China</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scott Guan, Cher Yeoh, China</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">May Ning Law, Shi Hui Ang, Ruixin Ng, Singapore</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Akshat Boobna, India</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ASIA (Age 17 - 18) </span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shaoxiong Luo, Singapore</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mark Borris Aldonza, Philippines</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Geoffrey Tanudjaja, Singapore</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Michael Teoh, Singapore</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shan Tan, Singapore</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wenqing Yan, Ronghui He, Singapore</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chung Kyu Kim, Ho Shin Cho, Joo Hee Lee, South Korea</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Raghavendra Ramachanderan, India</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kay Yi Low, Singapore</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wataru Ogasa, Takeshi Kitagawa, Youta Nakagawa, Japan </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">EMEA (Age 13 - 14) </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sakhiwe Shongwe, Bonkhe Mahlalela, Swaziland</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Carlos Vega García, Spain</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Natanel Levis, Israel</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marcin Pitek, Poland</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ana María Santos Espósito, Spain</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">India Hannon, Naomh Hannon, Isabelle Bond, England</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Isabel Medrano Sáinz, Spain</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anthony Carmoy, France</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alexey Kozlov, Milena Klimenko, Ukraine</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ralph Moran, Ireland</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">EMEA (Age 15 - 16) </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Artem Mosiyenko, Javed Lindner, Germany</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mohammed Al Eydan, Saudi Arabia</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pablo González Recio, Alvaro Cuevas Alvarez, Alejandro Sánchez Lechón, Spain</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shahd Al Jasser, Saudi Arabia</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Iván Hervías Rodríguez, Marcos Ochoa, Sergio Pascual, Spain</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gonzalo Balbás Moñivas, Spain</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Judith Calvo Rull, Spain</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Omar Obeya, Egypt</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Karsten Roth, Germany</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Menna AbdelGawad, Saudi Arabia</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">EMEA (Age 17 - 18) </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Danijar Hafner, Germany</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eugen Hruska, Germany</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Till Speicher, Paul Georg Wagner, Germany</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ibrahim Khalil, Egypt</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eduardo Sancho Calzada, Alejandra Bargues Carot, Laura García Marco, Spain</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Muireasa Carroll, Mairéad Kingston, Denise Hurley, Ireland</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Melvin Zammit, Malta</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Abdallah Reda, Egypt</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Adrián Díaz, Sandra Garrido Romero, Spain</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Philip Glass, Callum Middleton, England</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Americas (Age 13 - 14) </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kriti Lall, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anirudh Jain, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jonah Kohn, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mark Liang, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Andrew Chen, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Raymond Wang, Canada</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Garima Singh, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arjun Mahajan, Maya Flannery, Jonathan Berman, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Suruchi Ramanujan, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Martin Schneider, Joshua Li, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Americas (Age 15 - 16) </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kimberley Yu, Phillip Yu, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Natalie Ng, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rishabh Mazmudar, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Emily S. Wang, Trevor Wang, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joshua Meier, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Catherine Wong, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Katherine Zimmerman, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sabera Talukder, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grace Brosofsky, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alejandro Andres Fuentes Herrera, Chille </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Americas (Age 17 - 18) </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Daniel Wang, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brittany Wenger, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yamini Naidu, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Karen Resnick, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grace Pan, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yuhao (Danny) Huang, Canada</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blake Smith, Vickram Gidwani, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pascal Gendron, Canada</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yassine Bouanane, Canada</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ricardo Enrique Alba Torres, Jessica Alba Torres, Colombia</span><span style="color: red; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="color: red; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The </span><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scientific American</span><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Science in Action Award nominations are: </span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anjan Venkatesh, India</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sumit Singh, India</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Geoffrey Tanudjaja, Singapore</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sakhiwe Shongwe, Swaziland</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Carlos Vega García, Spain</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mena Abdel Gawad, Saudi Arabia</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mark Liang, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Andrew Chen, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Catherine Wong, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sabera Talukder, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grace Brosofsky, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ricardo Enrique Alba Torres, Jessica Alba Torres, Colombia</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Katherine Zimmerman, USA</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks to all of the students around the world who submitted projects to the Google Science Fair and congratulations to all the young scientists who were selected as regional finalists.</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Posted by: Sam Peter, Google Science Fair Team</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Missed registration this year? Click here to sign up for a </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/a/google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHloTFBOMTlDeWlsUU5HNHBQdEVlZUE6MQ"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">notification</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> when registration opens for the Google Science Fair 2013. </span></b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-57432000629706629212012-03-27T20:31:00.002-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.369-07:00My journey to the Galapagos<b id="internal-source-marker_0.7880449413787574"><span style="color: #545659; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last week, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIZfeYoPZzs&list=FLAn-f5AvAospCM1Jzgn9QHw&index=5&feature=plcp">Shree Bose</a>, the 2011 grand prize winner of <a href="http://google.com/sciencefair">Google Science Fair</a>, traveled to the Galapagos with National Geographic Expeditions as <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/prizes.html">part of the grand prize</a>. We invited Shree to write about her experience in the capital. - Ed.</span></b><br />
<span style="color: #545659; font-family: 'Open Sans';"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><br /></i></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two deep chocolate eyes stared into mine as I stood a few inches away, paralyzed in the beauty of the moment and at the unique, amazing creature before me. Wrinkled eyelids drowsily closed before slowly opening again to reveal eyes that seemed to hold the wisdom of the 160 years the tortoise had been alive. He looked about at the group of tourists close enough to touch him and showed no fear, dipping his head down by his leathery neck to chomp on some more grass and the bright green poison apples only tortoises can eat. As I quietly backed away, the tortoise looked up with a bored expression before heaving up his patterned swirled shell eroding with time and ambling away in the other direction for more food. I was in the Galapagos. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There's a huge difference between reading about a place like the Galapagos in school textbooks and actually visiting it. I road on a rubber boat motoring around the islands of the Galapagos and felt the salt water of the Pacific spraying up against my skin. I felt the red sands of the Rabida Island between my toes, and walked straight up to a giant Galapagos tortoise to say hello. I was no longer reading about a place, but experiencing it first hand. </span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The ten days in the Galapagos were like stepping into a different world. I had heard that animals on this island would not show any fear because they have very few natural predators, but I had no idea what to expect. I met vibrant red, Sally Lightfoot crabs, blue footed boobies I had learned about since freshman year, Galapagos tortoises, and Darwin finches. Sea lions played happily on beaches, close enough to chase me, and one did. A marine iguana, one of those species found nowhere else in the world, climbed up to me, its face less than a feet away before cocking his head sideways to regard me. A blue footed booby dove down into the water for fish a few feet away from the kayak my brother and I were paddling, before surfacing and coming up to our kayak and pecking on it. I come from a city where it isn't possible to get within a few feet of any bird. But there, even the tiniest of birds, like mockingbirds and finches, hopped about within a foot of our legs as we walked by. We went snorkeling in the clear, beautiful Pacific Ocean and I saw schools of brilliant fish and even a solitary turtle in there. I looked down once and realized I was directly above a school of eagle rays a few feet below, and once, I even looked down to see the shadow of a shark swimming away. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-49MBWqd5eXs/T3KEdj5TK1I/AAAAAAAAADs/0KGdVCXe_vw/s1600/Shree+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="390" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-49MBWqd5eXs/T3KEdj5TK1I/AAAAAAAAADs/0KGdVCXe_vw/s400/Shree+2.jpg" width="520" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shree with Marine Iguanas </td></tr>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Galapagos are special for several reasons. One is that they’re so isolated, a place where humans haven't had a great impact on the natural environments. Another is the biodiversity. This island chain lies at the crossroads of three currents that carried in a wide variety of species—in fact, there are lots of species here that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. A third is its scientific history. The Galapagos are where Darwin, during his 19 days on land there, noticed the incredible diversity of species and came up with his theory of natural selection and evolution. After ten days there, I realized all of these special things about the Galapagos, and decided to add one more: inspiration to keep exploring the amazing things our world has to offer and so much more beyond. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Shree </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-3299969750829896672012-03-05T20:47:00.004-08:002020-06-15T21:31:05.208-07:00Counting down to the Google Science Fair deadlineHundreds of thousands of years ago, we were all sitting around the campfire, looking up at the stars and wondering how we got here. Today, through the groundbreaking research at centers of science excellence like <a href="http://public.web.cern.ch/public/">CERN</a>, we are getting closer to answering some of mankind's fundamental questions. Recently, the Google Science Fair team visited CERN in Switzerland to see where one of our Google Science Fair <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/prizes.html">winners</a> will be spending time. At the home of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which CERN scientists are using to determine the origins of the universe, we truly felt the pulse of scientific discovery. We were inspired by the many scientists we spoke to who are trying to answer really big questions, like Archana Sharma, a physicist at CERN. Sharma reminds us in the CERN video below that, "It's important to keep asking questions because it's a sign of the health of society as a whole."<br />
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Science doesn’t have to be restricted to labs and million dollar research facilities. Inspiration for great projects can come from anywhere—a dedication to <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/mgmorris3993/home">sailing</a>, a passion for <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/lukesgsfentry/home">robots</a> or a love of <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/automaticmusicanalysis/home">music</a>. Speaking of science and music, on Thursday, March 8 at 2:30 PM PST, we will be hanging out with will.i.am on Google+. The Black Eyed Peas frontman will be talking about his passion for science and how it fuels his creativity. To join us for the hangout with will.i.am, follow the <a href="https://plus.google.com/108818810955465968635/posts">Google Science Fair on Google+</a> and stay tuned for updates.<br />
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The second annual Google Science Fair is in full swing, and the deadline for submissions is April 1, 2012. To ask your question, visit <a href="http://google.com/sciencefair">google.com/sciencefair</a>. We look forward to seeing great projects from the four corners of the globe again this year!<br />
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The Google Science Fair TeamUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-74019581210878504562012-01-12T03:00:00.000-08:002020-06-15T21:31:05.492-07:00Ask your question in the 2012 Google Science Fair(<i>Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog</i>)<br /><br />Are human beings born curious, or can curiosity be nurtured through environment, competition or a good teacher? Everyone’s got a question—that’s ours. But we’re sure you’ve got tons of questions, too. Today, we’re inviting students around the world to pose their most pressing questions about the world around them and answer those questions through scientific inquiry.<br /><br />Along with our partners CERN, The LEGO Group, <i>National Geographic</i> and <i>Scientific American</i>, today we’re launching the second annual <a href="http://google.com/sciencefair">Google Science Fair</a>, the largest online science competition in the world, open globally to students ages 13-18. Either individually or in teams of up to three people, students pose a question, develop a hypothesis and conduct science experiments to test it. The entire process is detailed and submitted online, via a website template participants fill out themselves, so all you need to participate is curiosity, an Internet connection and a browser.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LWiuUC9RDhY" width="560"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Last year, we received entries that strove to solve a wide variety of needs, from “How can I <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/ampkandcisplatinresistance/home">cure cancer</a>?” to “Can I teach a <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/lukesgsfentry/home">robot to learn English</a>?” to “Can I build a <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/mgmorris3993/">faster sailboat</a>?” The breadth and depth of these projects was incredibly impressive, and this year we hope to see even more entries from the next generation of brilliant young scientists.<br /><br />This year’s fair will be even more global than the last: We’re now accepting submissions in 13 languages (Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Spanish and Russia). We will also be recognizing 90 regional finalists (30 from the Americas, 30 from the Asia Pacific and 30 from Europe/Middle East/Africa). From these 90, to be announced in May, our judges will select the top 15 finalists, who will be flown to Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. for our live Google Science Fair final event on July 23, 2012. At the finals, a panel of distinguished international <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/judging.html">judges</a> (like Vint Cerf, Sylvia Earle and Nobel Laureates David Gross and Ada Yonath) will select top winners in each age category (13-14, 15-16, 17-18).<br /><br />We’re also introducing a new category for this year’s competition—the <i>Scientific American</i> Science in Action award. We were so inspired by 2011 finalist Harine Ravichandran’s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H158-6LE9Wg">project</a>, which attempted to solve energy surges in rural villages, that we decided to recognize an outstanding project that addresses a social, environmental or health need to make a difference in the lives of a group or community, as Harine’s project did for her grandparents’ village in India. The winner will also be flown to Mountain View for the finalist event in July.<br /><br />The Google Science Fair opens today, January 12, worldwide, and we’ll accept submissions until Sunday, April 1 at 11:59 GMT (or 6:59pm ET/3:59pm PT). In addition to satisfying your curious mind, your brilliant project can also help to win you some pretty cool <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/prizes.html">prizes</a>, like a $50,000 college scholarship from Google, a 10-day trip to the Galapagos Islands with a National Geographic Explorer or an internship at Google or any one of our partners. Our <i>Scientific American</i> Science in Action award winner will earn $50,000 and year-long mentorship to make their project goal a reality.<br /><br />The winners of last year’s inaugural Google Science Fair became something like scientific rock stars. Shree Bose, Naomi Shah and Lauren Hodge <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/10/07/google-science-fair-winners-visit-white-house">met with President Obama</a>, were invited to speak at big events like <a href="http://tedxwomen.org/speakers/lauren-hodge/">TEDx Women</a> and were <a href="http://www.wired.com/reviews/2011/11/wl_celebs/?pid=1779">featured</a> in <i>Wired</i> magazine. Shree, our grand prize winner, was named one of <i>Glamour</i> magazine’s <a href="http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/smitten/2011/11/meet-our-21-amazing-young-wome.html">21 Amazing Young Women of the Year</a>. White House visits and <i>Glamour</i> aside, every student in the Google Science Fair has the chance to do hands-on research that can truly change the world.<br /><br />Visit <a href="http://google.com/sciencefair">google.com/sciencefair</a> and ask your most burning questions at the top of your voice for the world to hear. Google itself was founded through experimentation and with the Google Science Fair, we hope to inspire scientific exploration among the next generation of scientists and engineUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-5600009091914198482011-10-11T14:25:00.001-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.357-07:00Two days in D.C. for the winners of the Google Science Fair<i>(Cross-posted on the <a href="http://googleforstudents.blogspot.com/">Google Student blog</a> and the <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/two-days-in-dc-for-winners-of-google.html">Official Google blog</a>)</i><br />
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<i>Last week, 17-year-old Shree Bose from Fort Worth, Texas, the grand prize winner of the Google Science Fair, visited Washington, D.C. at the invitation of the White House. We invited Shree to write about her experience in the capitol. - Ed.</i><br />
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Adrenaline. I turned around as the brilliantly polished door behind me opened, and suddenly I was face to face with a man I’d seen so many times on television. The President of the United States calmly extended his hand to shake mine and those of Naomi and Lauren, the other two winners of Google’s first-ever <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/">Science Fair</a>. He knew about our projects and was genuinely excited to talk with us.<br />
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The Oval Office is more than just a room. It has a palpable aura of grandeur, with the presidential seal in the center of the deep blue carpet and a portrait of George Washington hanging on the wall. The desk, where presidents of the past have contemplated some of the most important decisions in the world’s history, was polished to a gleam. President Obama leaned against it as he talked to us. <br />
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He asked us how we became interested in science, what our plans were for the future and which colleges we were interested in. Smiling, he told us to stick with science. We left the Oval Office feeling like our individual futures were important to the nation’s future; like we could change the world. <br />
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Our trip to Washington, D.C., also included visits to the National Institute of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Over our two days, we were given the opportunity to sit down and talk with many of our country’s leaders who have not only been extraordinarily successful in the fields we wish to go into in the future, but who also encouraged us to follow our own dreams. It was more than just meetings; it was inspiration. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GUJ8A1dmuMc/TpSKxMghTGI/AAAAAAAAIio/oG0xMb23HdA/s1600/17is5OM7NdbiYMgtVXot7KNpjcojzEpo.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GUJ8A1dmuMc/TpSKxMghTGI/AAAAAAAAIio/oG0xMb23HdA/s400/17is5OM7NdbiYMgtVXot7KNpjcojzEpo.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Naomi Shah, Shree Bose and Lauren Hodge meet President Obama in the Oval Office</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Official White House Photo by Pete Souza</i></div><br />
<span class="byline-author">Posted by Shree Bose, Google Science Fair winner</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-26005742338677397292011-07-12T08:01:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.185-07:00Hats off to the inaugural Google Science Fair winners<span style="font-family: Arial;"><i>Cross-posted from the <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/hats-off-to-winners-of-inaugural-google.html">Official Google Blog</a></i><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Yesterday, our top 15 Google Science Fair finalists descended on Google’s headquarters and wowed our luminary judges—as well as more than 1,000 local attendees plus Googlers who stopped by to check out the action. Our exhibit hall was buzzing with energy and excitement as everyone wondered which young scientists would go home with our top prizes. <br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The results are in—and this year was all about girl power. Our top three winners by age category are:<br />
</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;">Lauren Hodge in the 13-14 age group. Lauren studied the effect of different marinades on the level of potentially harmful carcinogens in grilled chicken.<br />
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</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;">Naomi Shah in the 15-16 age group. Naomi endeavored to prove that making changes to indoor environments that improve indoor air quality can reduce people’s reliance on asthma medications.<br />
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</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;">Shree Bose in the 17-18 age group. Shree discovered a way to improve ovarian cancer treatment for patients when they have built up a resistance to certain chemotherapy drugs.<br />
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</span></li>
</ul>
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<center><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nt1XDobZ_4I/ThxhDuNjBJI/AAAAAAAADJU/deQjnTKhGww/s1600/scifair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nt1XDobZ_4I/ThxhDuNjBJI/AAAAAAAADJU/deQjnTKhGww/s320/scifair.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></center><span style="font-family: Arial;">
<center><i>Winners (from left to right): Lauren Hodge, Shree Bose, Naomi Shah</i></center>
We also awarded one Grand Prize and the Grand Prize Winner is...Shree Bose; congratulations!
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Our judges said the unifying elements of all three young women were their intellectual curiosity, their tenaciousness and their ambition to use science to find solutions to big problems. They examined complex problems and found both simple solutions that can be implemented by the general public—like changing your cooking habits or removing toxins from your home—as well as more complex solutions that can be addressed in labs by doctors and researchers, such as Shree’s groundbreaking discovery, which could have wider implications for cancer research.
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The winners took home prizes furnished by Google and our partners CERN, LEGO and National Geographic. Shree received a $50,000 scholarship, a trip to the Galápagos Islands with a National Geographic Explorer and aninternship at CERN. Naomi and Lauren each received $25,000 scholarships and internships at Google and LEGO. All three were awarded lifetime digital subscriptions to Scientific American. Beyond the grand prizes, everyone went home with some pretty cool loot, along with plenty of photos and memories that we hope will last a lifetime. If you’d like to watch last night’s events, including a speech from our chairman, Eric Schmidt, and presentations from judges <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Kamen">Dean Kamen</a> and <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/field/explorers/tierney-thys/">Tierney Thys</a>, you can find video on our <a href="http://www.youtube.com/googlesciencefair">YouTube channel</a>.
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On behalf of Google, our partners and science lovers everywhere, we’d like to thank all of our finalists and everyone who submitted a project to the inaugural Google Science Fair. We are humbled by your ingenuity, your dedication and your skill. We are heartened to know that our future is in the capable hands of our young scientists—young men and women who tackle big ideas to bring significant, actionable change to the world.
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If you’d like information about next year’s Google Science Fair, <a href="https://services.google.com/fb/forms/gsf2012reminder/">let us know</a> and we’ll be in touch soon, or keep an eye on the <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/">Google Science Fair site</a> for regular updates.
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><i>Posted by Cristin Frodella, Google Education Team </i></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-30404510065621411372011-06-21T10:30:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.196-07:00The Experience of a Lifetime<span class="Apple-style-span">Editors notes: We invited Katrina Guido, age 15, a freshman at Emmaus High School in Pennsylvania and one of our Google Science Fair semi finalists, to write a blog post about the encouragement she received from her biology teacher to enter the Google Science Fair and what she learned from this experience. Katrina is actively involved in many of the opportunities her school offers including Biology Olympics and Olympiad, her school newspaper, and the tennis team.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pv-ahQ0fhUk/TgDWSZaQBuI/AAAAAAAAAqY/5P065qnYbG0/s1600/Ksci%2BAward%2B2.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620727946505357026" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pv-ahQ0fhUk/TgDWSZaQBuI/AAAAAAAAAqY/5P065qnYbG0/s400/Ksci%2BAward%2B2.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 321px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
When my biology teacher, Mr. Keith Butler, presented my class with the opportunity to compete in the Google Science Fair, I thought it would be just another science competition. Traditionally, my school district requires honors students to complete an in-depth experiment, and then teachers are supposed to encourage students to participate in competitions which require a prepared presentation with overheads or an informal interview and trifold board.<br />
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I am thankful Mr. Butler encouraged all competitions using various methods of presentations and that he offered us this specific opportunity. Not every teacher would take the time to search out the numerous competitions that he had.<br />
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I was intrigued by the idea of using a new method of presentation for the Google Fair because well, lets face it, printing off overheads without smudging them requires a special gift. I loved the idea of using a website to present because the web is something with which I as a student am very familiar and can easily use.<br />
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As I researched further and further as to what the Google Science Fair was, it dawned on me. Here was an opportunity to share my data with scientists from all over the globe. The judges were people who had received a different and more in depth educations than I, but still shared my enthusiastic love of science. Just to have the ability to share my data with them was awe-inspiring.<br />
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Once I found out that my project had been chosen for the semi-final round, I was shocked. To be chosen as one of 60 out of over 7,500 was spectacular.<br />
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The smile on my teacher's face made the experience even better. Mr. Butler sent the link to vote for the People's Choice Award to just about everyone he knew and even a few people he didn't. The most prominent memory in my mind is of when he took the students (including me) to the state competition of the Junior Academy of Science. Wherever he went, whoever he met, he was proud to tell them to vote for his student who was a semi-finalist in the Google Science Fair. I heard feedback from so many people in my community who I had never known had such a prominent interest in science.<br />
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My experiment was purposely rather unorthodox. After having sat in a room for three hours listening to basically the same project testing vitamin C about six or so times, one starts to see all of the challenges that no one seems to know how to overcome, such as a lack of quantitative data. Basically, I wanted to fix previous errors but still keep the experiment rather simple, so I built a photospectrometer out of a card board box, an LED pen light, and a Lego robotics unit to measure the difference in color shade of a vitamin C color-indicator test.<br />
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I am always asked why I chose to use a Lego instead of an actual light meter and well, to put it plainly, that would have been boring, and not everyone has access to a traditional light meter. When formulating my method, I remembered the time my family went to Lego Land and programmed Lego robots to follow a black line and find and push foam balls into a bucket. The unit used to sense the black lines was obviously sensing a difference in light and this just so happened to apply to my experiment.<br />
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Mr. Butler is retiring this year and to be able to credit him with introducing me to this opportunity and with providing me with the knowledge, support, and independence needed to design my experiment is the best retirement gift I could hope to offer. Thanks to him my passion for science is stronger than ever. Thanks in part to him and also the other amazing projects which reached the semi-final round, I have already started thinking about my project for next year. I was inspired to begin searching for a laboratory with which I can work in order to conduct more in-depth research because I want to use science to improve the world.<br />
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Participating in the Google Science Fair has given me the ability to share my data and knowledge with the world and to view the ideas of other teenage science enthusiasts from different countries. Google has given me the opportunity of a lifetime and for that I am thankful.<br />
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Katrina GuidoUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-92064207463293011152011-06-06T10:30:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.681-07:00A note from the Judges<span class="Apple-style-span">Editor's note: We've invited guest blogger Christina Baker, former science teacher, visiting lecturer in Psychology at the University of Westminster in London and our Google Science Fair Judging Panel Coordinator to provide some general feedback about all the great science fair projects that were submitted.</span><br />
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The Google Science Fair judging panel is made up of an international team of scientific experts from a wide range of fields, from biology, physics and chemistry to computer science. We hope you enjoyed creating these projects as much as we enjoyed reviewing them!"<br />
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As this is the Google Science Fair’s first year, the judging team didn’t know what to expect. The judges were impressed with entrants’ ability to use both imagination and sound research methods to conduct their investigations, and also found their enthusiasm for their chosen topics very inspiring. There was also good evidence of effective teamwork, as Google Sites enabled entrants to work together without having to be in the same room... or even the same country!<br />
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The standard of entries was extremely high. One judge commented: “I've just judged a project that has absolutely blown me away... It was so good I had to take a break for a cup of tea before judging a few more!”<br />
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With over 7,500 entries from all over the world, it would be impossible for judges to provide individual feedback to entrants, but we have provided some key points that apply to all.<br />
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The best entrants...<br />
<ul>
<li>Explored original or imaginative ideas</li>
<li>Communicated their thinking clearly and engagingly</li>
<li>Were meticulous about their scientific method</li>
<li>Followed the Science Fair rules</li>
<li>Made sure that all teammates had parental permission</li>
<li>Made sure that website and presentation permissions were viewable (i.e. not set to ‘Private’)</li>
<li>Read and addressed all the criteria for each section</li>
<li>Made sure there was a clear idea linking their project together (so that the experiment and conclusion clearly addressed the question and hypothesis)</li>
<li>Explained how their work could make a positive difference to the world</li>
<li>Allowed their love of science to shine through in their project </li>
</ul>
It was clear from the projects as a whole that the future world will be in good hands with the next generation of very talented young scientists!<br />
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Christina Baker<br />
Google Science Fair Judging Panel CoordinatorUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-74530092311741586872011-05-23T09:00:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.503-07:00The votes are in for the Google Science Fair Finalists and People’s Choice Award Winner<span style="font-style:italic;">(Cross-posted on the <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/votes-are-in-for-google-science-fair.html">Official Google Blog</a> and <a href="http://googleforstudents.blogspot.com/2011/05/votes-are-in-for-google-science-fair.html">Google Student Blog</a>)</span><br /><br />From <a href="http://sites.google.com/site/mgmorris3993/home">winged keels</a> to <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/fullysubmersiblewaterturbine/">water turbines</a>, from <a href="http://sites.google.com/site/eegprosthetics/home">prosthetic limbs</a> to <a href="http://sites.google.com/site/lukesgsfentry/home">programming in pure English</a>, it’s been a fascinating two weeks for our Google Science Fair judges. It was no easy task to select <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/finalists.html">15 finalists</a> out of the 60 semi-finalists—all of the students’ projects asked interesting questions, many focused on real-world problems and some produced groundbreaking science that challenged current conventions. <br /><br />After much deliberation we're happy to announce the <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/finalists.html">15 finalists</a>:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Age 13 - 14<br /></span>Anand Srinivasan, USA<br />Daniel Arnold, USA<br />Lauren Hodge, USA<br />Luke Taylor, South Africa<br />Michelle Guo, USA<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Age 15 - 16<br /></span>Dora Chen, USA<br />Gavin Ovsak, USA<br />Harine Ravichandran, India<br />Naomi Shah, USA<br />Skanda Koppula, USA<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Age 17 - 18<br /></span>Christopher Neilsen, Canada<br />Matthew Morris, USA<br />Shaun Lim Hsien Yang, Singapore<br />Shree Bose, USA<br />Vighnesh Leonardo Shiv, USA<br /><br />In July, these finalists will come to Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. to present their projects to our panel of <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/judging_judges.html">finalist judges,</a> including science luminaries, technology innovators and one Nobel laureate. They'll compete for prizes that include $100,000 in scholarship funds, real-life experiences at CERN, Google, LEGO and Scientific American, and a trip to the Galapagos Islands courtesy of National Geographic Expeditions. The winners will be announced at our celebration gala that same evening, beginning at 6:00 p.m. PDT July 11. The event will be streamed live on our <a href="http://www.youtube.com/googlesciencefair">YouTube channel</a> so make sure to tune in.<br /><br />In addition, over the past two weeks people around the world have had the opportunity to vote for their favorite projects in our online voting gallery. We have had over 100,000 votes and the competition was really tight, but we’re happy to announce that Nimal Subramanian is the People’s Choice Award winner. Nimal will receive a $10,000 scholarship. Congratulations Nimal—the public really loved <a href="http://sites.google.com/site/cancerremover/home">your project</a>!<br /><br />Congratulations to all the finalists and the People’s Choice Award winner. We look forward to meeting the finalists at Google in July.<br /><br />Samantha Peter, Education TeamUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-78700145423467962562011-05-13T10:25:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.526-07:00Bring Science Home<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8e_-_FV_BBg/Tc1syk2KQnI/AAAAAAAAACw/Opi322qEZio/s1600/mariette_dichristina1.jpeg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5606256727286235762" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8e_-_FV_BBg/Tc1syk2KQnI/AAAAAAAAACw/Opi322qEZio/s320/mariette_dichristina1.jpeg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 247px;" /></a><br />
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<span id="internal-source-marker_0.75626420089975" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Science is cool,” my 10-year-old daughter said to me this morning. I asked her why she thought that. “Do we need to have a reason?” she fired back with a smile. After I stopped laughing, I thought about what she said, and I realized something.</span></div>
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<span id="internal-source-marker_0.75626420089975" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span id="internal-source-marker_0.75626420089975" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m not a scientist, but in my house, science is just part of everyday life. When the kids have questions, we talk about the science behind the things they’re wondering about. We often do fun things together that involve science—from activity kits to nature walks to visiting science museums. So it’s obvious to my two girls why science matters.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.75626420089975" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But most parents don’t happen to brush against the world of science everyday as the editor in chief of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scientific American</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, as I am—and most of them didn’t get science degrees either. Studies have shown that attitudes about science and scientists form at a young age. If kids get turned off to science at a young age, they may never come back. How can non-scientist parents easily foster a love of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)? That’s where </span><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/section.cfm?id=bring-science-home" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bring Science Home</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> comes in!</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every weekday for the month of May, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scientific American</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is posting a free science activity online for parents and their 6-to-12 year-olds to enjoy together. We worked with members of the</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309053269" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">National Science Teachers Association</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to create material based on the </span><a href="http://www.nsta.org/" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">National Science Education Standards</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">so the weekly themes echo what kids learn in younger grades. The Bring Science Home activities are fun and easy, and you can do them in less than an hour—usually with things you already have around the house. With summer coming up, they’re also handy to entertain young minds over the long break.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This initiative is part of Bridge to Science, Nature Publishing Group's participation in the </span><a href="http://www.changetheequation.org/" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Change the Equation</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> partnership and the White House's </span><a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/educate-innovate" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Educate to Innovate</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> campaign. You can read more about that </span><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=welcome-to-bring-science-home-2011-05-02" style="font-family: Times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">So we say: Bring Science Home! Because science belongs in the home.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Posted by: Mariette DiChristina, Editor-in-Chief </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scientific American</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-59309270888153083832011-05-09T09:00:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.392-07:00Google Science Fair global semi-finalists announcedCongratulations to the global semi-finalists in the inaugural <a href="http://www.google.com/sciencefair">Google Science Fair</a>! These 60 projects were selected from a pool of over 7500 entries from more than 90 countries around the world and are now available for public viewing at <a href="http://www.google.com/sciencefair">google.com/sciencefair</a>. <div><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YRHCCzLZCME?hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YRHCCzLZCME?hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><div><br /></div><br />The many thousands of innovative and engaging entries on a wide range on topics from cancer treatment to renewable oceanic energy to aeronautic auto-pilot algorithms made it no easy task to select just 60 semi-finalists. Our teams of teachers around the world has worked hard to evaluate the creativity, scientific merit and global relevance of each submission over the past few weeks and now the results are in!<br /><br />The global semi-finalists in each of the three age categories are:<br /><br /><b>13-14<br /></b>Kevala Van Volkenburg, Canada<br />Marc Ting, Canada<br />Ann Ding, Canada<br />Nishanth Kumar, Krishna Betai , Anish V Malladi, India<br />Sahil Sahibole, India<br />Muhammad Syafiq, Bin Idros, Lee Tae Won, Bey Huat Guang, Singapore<br />Girish Kumar, Singapore<br />Luke Taylor, South Africa<br />Rishabh Mazmudar, USA<br />Peter Graham, USA<br />Sunny Potharaju, Justin Yang, USA<br />Nimal Subramanian, USA<br />Lauren Hodge, USA<br />Michelle Guo, USA<br />Michael Yang, USA<br />Anika Raghuvanshi, USA<br />Daniel Arnold, USA<br />Harikrishnan Ravikumar, USA<br />Anand Srinivasan, USA<br />Muadh Ghuneim, USA<br /><br /><b>15-16<br /></b>Rebecca Todesco, Canada<br />Chaithya G. R., Siri G.R., India<br />Harine Ravichandran, India<br />Shashank Dahagama, India<br />Georgia Bondy, UK<br />Nicholas McCoy, USA<br />Jacqueline Carbajal, USA<br />Dora Chen, USA<br />Gavin Ovsak, USA<br />Yanqi-Tyson Chen, USA<br />Amelia Ricketts, Willa Sieradsk, Jennifer Wang, USA<br />Jacob Buckman, USA<br />Natalie Ng, USA<br />Katrina Guido, USA<br />Alan Hwang, USA<br />Saumil Bandyopadhyay, USA<br />Margaret Rodeback, USA<br />Naomi Shah, USA<br />Bradley Proffit, USA<br />Skanda Koppula, USA<br /><br /><b>17-18<br /></b>Christopher Nielsen, Canada<br />Niraja Ranadive, Pushpendra Yadav, Vaishnavi Kokitkar, India<br />Jun Bing, Alec Wang, New Zealand<br />Xu Shi Meng, Singapore<br />Chiu Chai Hao, Singapore<br />Tanmay Shankar, India<br />Shaun Lim Hsien Yang, Singapore<br />Shree Bose, USA<br />Arushi Raghuvanshi , USA<br />Munia Mustafa, USA<br />Addison Weiler, USA<br />Matthew Morris, USA<br />Nathan Sprenkle, USA<br />David Tang-Quan, USA<br />Nicholas Louis Montgomery, USA<br />Grace Kim, USA<br />Dan Dou, USA<br />Vighnesh Leonardo Shiv, USA<br />Ankush Gupta, USA<br />Joy Carol Ming, USA<br /><br />Now that the first round is over it’s your turn to be the judge … starting today you can visit <a href="http://www.google.com/sciencefair">google.com/sciencefair</a> and vote for your favorite Google Science Fair project. The team or individual with the most votes will win the <a href="http://www.google.com/sciencefair/vote.html">People’s Choice Award</a> and bring home a $10,000 scholarship. Public voting will only be open until 20 May 2011 so make sure to cast your vote today to ensure your favorite project is in the running.<br /><br />Check back 23 May to see which teams will be flown out to Google’s headquarters in California for the final round of judging conducted by our panel of renowned scientists and innovators and the celebratory finalist event.<br /><br />Thanks to all of the students around the world who submitted projects to the Google Science Fair and congratulations again to all the young scientists who made it to the semi-finalist round.<br /><br />Posted by: The Google Science Fair Team<br /><br />Missed registration this year? Click <a href="https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGZvWUs5ZjM3QWFwRmxLa3JWZzZORnc6MQ">here</a> to sign up for a notification when registration opens for the Google Science Fair 2012. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-69172348355484243082011-04-29T10:11:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.426-07:00Steve Wolf, professional stuntman, explains the science behind movie magic<span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VFn2mlQ8ySg/TbrzF46mfTI/AAAAAAAAACo/i5AIxxq89XY/s1600/steve.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 260px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VFn2mlQ8ySg/TbrzF46mfTI/AAAAAAAAACo/i5AIxxq89XY/s320/steve.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601056369091706162" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Editor’s note: <i>Steve Wolf is a professional stunt coordinator in the movie and TV industry. He explains the importance of creative scientific inquiry and reveals some of the science behind movie magic</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap; "><i>.</i></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "></span>Every morning I wake up and ask myself what I feel most inspired to do. I really enjoy inventing, innovating, and blowing things up... so I do! As president of <a href="http://www.weaddexcitement.com/">Special FX International</a>, I'm a scientist who works on movie sets, coordinating stunts and special effects for movies, television shows and live events. I’m often asked how I got into this work, but the truth is, I never got out of it. I started inventing when I was four, and experimenting with my chemistry set at six.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />Science is the language and blueprint of how the universe</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">works. Just as you can make up new words after you know the letters of the alphabet, you can arrange simple principles to invent anything you like once you understand the basic building blocks of science.<br />My love of inventing has led me to amazing <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0937940/">opportunities</a> in the film industry, working with movie stars including Tom Cruise and famous directors including James Cameron. But while movies provide interesting technical challenges, science is what I find truly exciting.<br /><br />The idea of making science as engaging, memorable and fun as an action-adventure movie inspired me to create “<a href="http://www.scienceinthemovies.com">Science in the Movies</a>,” a live presentation that reveals to students (and teachers) how their favorite movie stunts and effects are based on simple physics and chemistry. I am especially excited to show the global finalists (and everyone watching on YouTube) the science behind movie stunts in person at the Google Science Fair final event on July 11!<br /><br />I’m thrilled and honored to help Google bring its online Science Fair to students around the world. Seeing the amazingly creative projects kids have submitted is extremely inspiring. It gives me hope that the next generation will be prepared to tackle whatever challenges may arise -- both on screen and off -- with a true scientist’s dedication to invention, ingenuity and discovery. </span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Posted by Steve Wolf, President, Special FX International</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-6386815207922523932011-04-22T16:21:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.403-07:00Earth & Environmental Sciences projects the favored category for entrants in the Google Science FairEditor's note: <i>Our partners at Scientific American have prepared a special guest post to celebrate Earth Day and highlight the role of youth scientists in solving the environmental problems we face today</i>.<div><br /><div><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gS39zBg__Co/TbISknz_dBI/AAAAAAAAACI/WYjSutUd4fo/s320/David%2BBiello-82.jpg" style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 247px; height: 320px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5598557707146589202" /></div><div>The <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scientificamerican.com%2Farticle.cfm%3Fid%3Dbeyond-fossil-fuels-energy">fuel of the future</a> isn't gasoline, ethanol or even hydrogen -- it's education. Specifically, the science and engineering education that will enable a fresh group of smart young people to tackle the world's ongoing energy crisis. Solving the energy crisis will go a long toward solving a host of environmental problems: pollution, environmental health risks, climate change, to name just a few.</div><div><br /></div><div>You interested?</div><div><br /></div><div>Today marks the 41st anniversary of <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scientificamerican.com%2Fblog%2Fpost.cfm%3Fid%3Dcelebrate-earth-day-buy-buy-buy-2010-04-19">Earth Day</a>, a day meant to celebrate a new way for people and the planet to thrive. And that always has and always will depend on youths (a demographic I am rapidly leaving behind).</div><div><br /></div><div>That's why <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scientificamerican.com%2Fblog%2Fpost.cfm%3Fid%3Dtalking-science-and-the-google-scie-2011-02-28">Scientific American partnered</a> with the <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fevents%2Fsciencefair%2F">Google Science Fair</a> and, on this earth day, it is why we are excited to announce that out of the 12 categories that student scientists could choose from, 'Earth & Environmental Sciences' ranked first. That surprises me, at least, given that Google is famous for its computer science and math prowess (which was a close runner-up category).</div><div><br /></div><div>A quick YouTube search reveals Google Science Fair projects ranging from <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DeX2si33C5Jw">harnessing sewage to generate electricity</a> to using <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DQKVYG8ZHYXU">recycled cans to create efficient solar ovens</a>. Given that the world produces 300 billion such cans every year, that's at least one solution that might come in handy.</div><div><br /></div><div>Out of some 7,500 entries from more than 10,000 young scientists from 90 countries around the world, handling the planet's environmental problems comprised close to 25 percent of submissions. And that's a good thing because young scientists are the key for revving up the <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scientificamerican.com%2Freport.cfm%3Fid%3Dnew-solutions-for-clean-energy&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNFc015uvV163hMxBRrZWYj8nHUf7w">innovation engine</a> we need to invent our way out of these problems of our own making. Let's get started!</div><div><br /></div><div>Posted by David Biello, associate editor for environment and energy at ScientificAmerican.com</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-80447546250624316592011-04-12T12:53:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.571-07:00Developing a Passion for Problem Solving<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eXfUT-j_teQ/TacWCmxUsgI/AAAAAAAAAB4/wlTWv14pmUg/s1600/Culhane2%2B%2528credit-Sybille_Fr%25C3%25BCtel_Culhane%2529-1.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eXfUT-j_teQ/TacWCmxUsgI/AAAAAAAAAB4/wlTWv14pmUg/s320/Culhane2%2B%2528credit-Sybille_Fr%25C3%25BCtel_Culhane%2529-1.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5595465296054104578" /></a><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Editors Note: Now that the submissions for the Google Science Fair are in and the judging has begun in earnest, we invited guest blogger Thomas Culhane, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer and one of our judges for the Google Science Fair, to talk about how he believes the world is your laboratory.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><i></i></span>I am so excited to see all of the submissions that came in -- but I am most looking forward to reviewing them and seeing which of the world’s problems you chose to tackle!</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">As I prepare to leave Germany to do field work on renewable energy projects in Africa and Asia, I find myself reflecting on how an American kid like me became a National Geographic Emerging Explorer. I spend one half the year travelling around the world conducting “citizen science” with people from a vast range of cultures and backgrounds and the other half working on home-scale energy, water and waste research in Europe. And I ask myself: what advice can I give to other young people who want to do something positive to help both civilization and the natural world endure?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">My principal piece of advice is, “science is all around you. Build on the science you learn in a classroom or from a textbook; the world is your laboratory!”</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">When I was in middle school and high school, the land around my home -- the Hudson Valley ecosystem -- taught me important lessons about human impact. The stream was littered with phosphates, oil and other pollutants from the town. The forest was full of plastic waste, leftover shopping carts and even old cars that were dumped by my own neighbors. I became an environmental activist on the first Earth Day in 1972, when I was 10. While adults in my neighborhood were planting flowers and sweeping streets, I gathered my friends to clean up the woods.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">In my teenage years, I did everything I could to further my scientific education. I rode the train to the Museum of Natural History in New York City, I joined Pete Seeger’s Clearwater Club, I took summer jobs cleaning test tubes in laboratories and I went on field trips with professional scientists who taught kids how to research environmental degradation. By age 15, I was finally old enough to fulfill a lifelong dream -- I took a scuba diving course. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Seeing the underwater world changed my life. My subsequent dives were often in lakes and quarries, so I saw a lot of garbage down there. And a lot of oil slicks. I realized that there is no “out of sight out of mind”; the way we live has downstream consequences that you can’t just throw or flush away. Even in the most remote and beautiful places, there is no escaping the mess we make in our cities and towns. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">After college, I spent time following orangutans through the rainforests of Borneo and learning from the local tribespeople who knew how to live sustainably. I returned to my high school as a teacher and made it my mission to share what I had learned with others and inspire students to look beyond the classroom. Taking my students on field trips into the incredible Hudson Valley ecosystem was what led me to continue my own education and pursue my Ph.D. in Urban Planning with a specialty in Environmental Analysis and Policy. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Seeing the multiple problems we face, I am most excited to work with you, the students participating in the Google Science Fair, because I know that your creative minds are going to solve the problems you’ve inherited from us on this precious planet. Science is all around you -- but the excitement to tackle scientific problems is within you. To be a great scientist, develop a passion for the possible and an interest in problem solving. Then go outside and explore, observe, hypothesize and experiment. Alongside your schoolwork, the world, its citizens and the laws of nature will then teach you everything you need to know.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-12272919289355742862011-04-08T15:14:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.080-07:00Thousands of students channel their passion for discovery into science fair projectsAt midnight last night we officially closed the submission window for the first Google Science Fair. We have been thrilled by the positive response from students around the world, and we are happy to announce that we received over 7,500 entries from more than 10,000 young scientists in over 90 countries around the world.<div><br /></div><div>The judging has already begun and we are seeing some truly fantastic projects. Students are tackling interesting, important problems -- from treating cancer and preventing tsunamis to monitoring ocean erosion -- and presenting their findings in engaging and creative ways. The judges have a tough job ahead of them!</div><div><br /></div><div>Keep an eye on<a href="http://www.google.com/sciencefair"> google.com/sciencefair</a> for the announcement of the 60 global semi-finalists on May 9 and get ready to vote for the People's Choice Award!</div><div><br /></div><div>Samantha Peter, Education Marketing Manager</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-52914460897690392012011-04-05T08:31:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.311-07:00Google Science Fair Extends Submission DeadlineWe have been overwhelmed by the number of submissions we received for the Google Science Fair. We are enthusiastic about the the great projects we have seen so far!<br /><br />The competition was officially closing yesterday. However, we understand that, due to the volume of projects submitted on the last day, some students experienced problems when they tried to submit their projects close to the deadline last night. That’s why we have decided to re-open the <a href="https://services.google.com/fb/forms/gosfproject/">submission form</a> until 11:59:59 PM EST on Thursday, 7 April 2011 to give everyone who had a problem a chance to submit their work. We know that many of the students who were unable to submit their projects had worked very hard for several months to perfect their work and we believe that it’s only fair to give them a chance to compete. And, guess what - if you’ve already submitted your entry, you can use this time to continue to perfect it or tweak it!<br /><br />Wishing everyone who submitted projects good luck! Remember to keep an eye on <a href="http://www.google.com/sciencefair">www.google.com/sciencefair</a> for the announcement of our global semi finalists and the launch of our People’s Choice Awards in early May.<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" >Samantha Peter, Education Marketing Manager</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-25411969422940444052011-04-04T14:28:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.173-07:00Science is a life tool and scientific thinking is a life skill<i><span class="Apple-style-span">Editor’s Note: Amidst the flurry of activity around the final day of submissions for the Google Science Fair, we invited guest blogger Tierney Thys, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer and one of our finalist judges for the Google Science Fair, to talk about how she believes scientific thinking is a life skill. </span></i><br /><br />When I’m not hammering away at my computer, chasing small children or catching up on sleep, I’m in the ocean searching for one of nature’s giants, the infamous ocean sunfish, <a href="http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/mola/">Mola mola</a>. This decidedly odd behemoth is the world’s largest jellyfish eater, produces an estimated 300 million eggs at a time and is the world’s largest bony fish.<br />I’ve always had a penchant for animals. My childhood home was filled with dogs, fish and the occasional bird but, aside from our dogs, I’ve always preferred being with animals in the wild. And the weirder the beast, the better. It’s a passion I’ve carried with me ever since I was a little girl.<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WGFrnqv1IlY/TZo46mBLInI/AAAAAAAAAjc/L7Y5mdrj-pI/s1600/T2MolaCUDiego2010.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 264px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WGFrnqv1IlY/TZo46mBLInI/AAAAAAAAAjc/L7Y5mdrj-pI/s400/T2MolaCUDiego2010.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591844466622931570" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" ><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Photograph by Mike Johnson</span></div></span><div><br />I think we are all born little scientists and as we get bigger some of us just become increasingly stubborn about answering the torrent of questions our brains ask every day. I think stubbornness or, shall we more diplomatically say perseverance, is a very handy trait and one that you should cultivate if you’re interested in pursuing a science career. It will see you through the tough times and deliver you into the rewarding territory of discovery. As you are finishing up your application (due today!) let this push you through to your conclusions. <br /><br />Science is a life tool and scientific thinking is a life skill. If I had one morsel of advice to give you as you wrap up your application, I’d say, “Be a critical thinker with a healthy dose of skepticism. When someone delivers you information, ask yourself, “How did he/she get that information? Was that a legitimate experiment? What and where is their evidence? Is it robust? Is there an alternative explanation and has that been tested? Who is paying for the research and do they have an ulterior motive? Keep in mind that these are questions I will also ask myself as I review your application.<br />We’re living in a time of phenomenal, mind-blowing discoveries--from investigations that unveil the dynamics between our oceans, our actions and Earth’s climate, to enhancements in computer interfaces and technology, to explorations into the life of ocean giants, to a better understanding of the evolutionary processes that lead from single-celled blobs to keyboard-clicking bloggers.<br /><br />What a spectacular time to be alive! We are truly rocketing ahead on the shoulders of giants. Yet simultaneously, we are being deluged by a relentless onslaught of junk science and crazy misinformation--all presented in a frighteningly authoritative manner. How many of us<br />have read recently about “scientific studies” claiming to help you loose 20 pounds in 2 days, or cure acne forever with just one pill?<br />Science is the ultimate tool against such bogus claims. Learning how to ask questions, how to read data, conduct data analyses and how to figure out what claims are supported or refuted by legitimate evidence are all critical life skills. My science training has given me this powerful way of knowing and served as my reliable guide through today’s gauntlet of quackery and false promise.<br /><br />So now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go drink some orange juice. The carton scientifically claims it will take just two glasses per meal to reduce my cholesterol level! Hmm I wonder how the evidence is supported.<br /><br /><a href="http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/specials/in-the-field-specials/thys-mola.html">Watch this video</a> to learn more and see Tierney swimming with the great Mola.<br /><br />Posted by Tierney Thys, National Geographic Emerging Explorer</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-59109882704022439252011-03-30T11:42:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.380-07:00Curiosity driven science<i><span class="Apple-style-span" >Editor’s note: We’ve invited guest blogger Rolf Heuer, Director General of CERN, the European Centre for Particle Physics - and one of the Google Science Fair finalist judges - to talk about how his passion for Science developed. To learn more about CERN’s big experiments check out our <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW3Vo1DkayM">interview with physicist Tara Shears</a>.</span></i><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U-w8SOLA8Kc/TZN9FgD-yxI/AAAAAAAAAjE/MjdzdzrI9QQ/s1600/cern.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U-w8SOLA8Kc/TZN9FgD-yxI/AAAAAAAAAjE/MjdzdzrI9QQ/s400/cern.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5589949095956368146" /></a><br />Google asked me to write a few lines about why I became a judge for the Google Science Fair, and they asked that I talk about what inspired me to go into science. When I was young I remember being passionate about two things. One was my local football team, VfB Stuttgart, and the other was a desire to know what things are made of at the smallest scales.<br /><br />I’m not the first to ask that question, far from it. The idea of atomism – that there’s a smallest possible piece of any given substance – goes back to Leucippus and Democritus in ancient Greece. That people have been asking such questions for so long makes me think that this kind of curiosity is not just the preserve of scientists, but is part of what makes us all human.<br /><br />My intuition is backed up by evidence: whenever we ask people what they think of us at CERN, they always say that while our science is sometimes hard to follow, our mission to understand the fundamental nature of the universe is an important one. People support curiosity-driven science.<br /><br />When I was young, I never thought of myself as a junior scientist, I was just curious. The ‘research tools’ I chose to satisfy my curiosity were construction sets like LEGO. I would spend hours experimenting with them. Most of the time, I’d fail to produce what I was aiming for at the first attempt, but with perseverance I usually got there. Again, I have the impression that I was not alone. For others, chemistry sets or microscopes took the place of my construction sets, but it seems to me that most of the children I grew up with were behaving scientifically one way or another. I think that all children are natural scientists, but as we grow up, many of us seem to disengage. That’s one good reason why I’m judging the science fair: I think it’s a great way to promote and sustain interest in science at a crucial age.<br /><br />The thing that inspires me about the Google Science Fair is that it’s all about encouraging young people around the world not to forget how to think and behave scientifically. It’s about science bringing people together, and it’s about encouraging young people to design a scientific procedure and follow it through from start to finish. As a judge, I’ll be looking out for projects that push the limits. If there are setbacks along the way, I might well consider that to be a plus, because just as I discovered with my construction sets as a child, it’s through such experience that we progress.<br /><br />One of my greatest dreams is for science to play a much bigger role in society. Of course it already does in terms of the gadgets we use and the things we all take for granted, but I also want people to talk about science the way they talk about football. If I walk down the street and ask people what inspires them it would be great to get the answer ‘soccer teams and science fairs’ on equal footing. Science deserves to be up there at the top of the popular agenda. Am I dreaming? Maybe, but I think that initiatives like the Google Science Fair can do much to make this dream a reality.<br /><br />Posted by Rolf Heuer, Director General of CERN </photo>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-71617682448371017732011-03-29T11:46:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.480-07:00It’s the final countdown for the Google Science FairDid you know that <a href="http://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/">Mitch Rensick</a> won his local Science Fair? Today he is a professor at the MIT media lab where he develops educational technology that is changing the landscape of learning with his <a href="http://llk.media.mit.edu/">Lifelong Kindergarten</a> project. You can learn more about him by tuning in to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quO2QhrgkAM&feature=player_embedded#at=129">our interview</a>.<br /><br />Now is <b>your</b> chance to use your scientific knowledge to try to explore and solve real word problems as part of the <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/">Google Science Fair</a>. With only 5 days left before the April 4th deadline, we encourage you to get your projects submitted.<br /><br />Please keep in mind that when entering the contest, we’ll need parent or guardian consent in order for submissions to be valid. Submissions that don’t include parental or guardian consent will be disqualified. Even if you’re working as part of a team, we require parental or guardian consent for every team member. Your parent or guardian can consent by either:<br /><ol><li>Responding to the email they were sent when you signed up. If they didn’t receive the email, visit this link: <a href="https://services.google.com/fb/forms/gosfconsent/">https://services.google.com/fb/forms/gosfconsent/</a></li><li>If your parent or guardian doesn’t have access to email, we are also able to accept a hard-copy of the consent form which you can download <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/pdf/ParentalConsent-Hardcopy.pdf">here</a>. Once your parent or guardian fills this out, scan and email the completed form to <mailto="science-fair-consent@googlegroups.com">science-fair-consent@googlegroups.com</mailto="science-fair-consent@googlegroups.com"></li></ol>As you put the finishing touches on your projects, please remember to:<br /><ul><li>Set the permission of your Google Science Fair project site to <a href="http://www.google.com/support/sites/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=98182">public</a> so the judges will be able to see it.</li><li>Include a video or presentation on your Summary Page (also set to public). For an example, check out <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/tescasgsfsample/home">Tesca’s sample project</a>.</li><li>Submit your final project site via <a href="https://services.google.com/fb/forms/gosfproject/">this form</a> by 4 April 2011.</li></ul>If you have any questions make sure to check out our <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/help.html">FAQ</a> and <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/gsfhelpforum/">help forum</a>. Good luck to all the students who have entered the competition, and keep an eye on our <a href="http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/">Google Science Fair site</a> for the announcement of the global semi finalists in early May. We look forward to seeing all the great work from the world’s future scientists.<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" >Samantha Peter, Education Marketing Manager</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4563715438157022707.post-46365287548029110352011-03-15T08:35:00.000-07:002020-06-15T21:31:05.288-07:00Can you help us solve tomorrow’s problems?<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); "><span id="internal-source-marker_0.25808823737315834" style="font-size: 13pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">Editor’s note:</span><span style="font-size: 13pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "> We’ve invited guest blogger Spencer Wells,</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "> National Geographic Explorer in Residence, Director, The Genographic Project</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" > </span></span><span style="font-size: 13pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">and one of our finalist judges for the Google Science Fair to talk about how he believes young people can help us solve tomorrow’s problems</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); "><span style="font-size: 13pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">
<br /></span></span></div><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UeWg7GFj8MU/TX-IIrsFeAI/AAAAAAAAAAk/ZnUG-dp1gmY/s320/0002814-R01-011.Jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 215px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584331745710667778" /><div style="background-color: transparent; "><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i><div style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-size: 11px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><meta charset="utf-8"><div style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Times; white-space: normal; font-size: medium; "><span id="internal-source-marker_0.25808823737315834" style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">Spencer Wells explains Genographic Project to participants in northern Chad. Photo by David Evans</span></div></div></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;background-color: transparent; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8">
<br /></span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">I visit a lot of schools every year to discuss my work as a geneticist and anthropologist with students. Some of the time is spent with me telling the kids about what I’m doing – about our species recent journey from an African homeland, and how we all carry the story inside ourselves, in our DNA. Probably the most interesting part of any visit, though, is when the students give feedback through their own stories, comments and questions. And one of the questions that nearly always comes up is ‘how did you become a scientist?’</span>
<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"></span></span><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">Chance, good teachers, and role models all play big roles in determining a person’s career choice. For instance, my parents took me to see the King Tutankhamun exhibit that toured the United States in the late 1970s. This chance encounter with the amazing objects on display awakened a passion for ancient history that still drives me. Similarly, my mother returning to graduate school to pursue a PhD in biology when I was ten showed me that science could be fascinating. It wasn’t simply a dusty tome of facts to be memorized, but rather, a way of learning about the world – solving puzzles on a daily basis, with Mom as an active role model. And finally, my own teachers – special shout-out to Mr. Swift, my 9</span><span style="font-size: 7.199999999999999pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap; ">th</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "> grade biology teacher, and Mr. Aiken, my high school chemistry teacher! – showed me that science could be fun. Whether it was Mr. Swift passing around a boa constrictor in class or Mr. Aiken hammering a nail with a banana that had been soaked in liquid nitrogen, they showed me that science is really fun, in addition to being fascinating.</span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">
<br /></span></div><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vDU16A-hRH0/TX-HtmPBoYI/AAAAAAAAAAc/2Tc3LJHJECE/s320/0002800-R01-003.Jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 215px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584331280390136194" /><div style="background-color: transparent; "><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><meta charset="utf-8"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; white-space: normal; "><div style="background-color: transparent; "><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span"><i><div style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; "><span id="internal-source-marker_0.25808823737315834" style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">On expedition in Chad, Spencer Wells explains the Genographic Project to local village leaders and community members.</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" > </span></span><span style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">Photo by David Evans</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">
<br /></span></div></i></span></span></div></span></span></span></div><div style="background-color: transparent; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; "></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">It’s this passion that I try to convey to the students I talk with – the idea that you need to find your passions and run with them. Even if it seems esoteric (are you obsessed with butterfly wing patterns, or really want to understand why the aurora borealis lights up the arctic skies?), find that something – or things – you care passionately about, and start digging. You never know where it will lead you, or the rest of the world. For instance, my passion for history and science in high school translated into a PhD in population genetics, and ultimately into my work on Genographic. Similarly, the intricate scales that make up the patterns on a butterfly wing may provide an important insight into the development of better photovoltaic cells, while the aurora borealis may provide clues that could be used to develop alternative sources of energy. The desire to explore has to come from within you, though – asking hard questions and not being content simply to wonder, but to discover.</span>
<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"></span></span>
<br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">As young people, you have the wonderful gift of limitless possibilities – you aren’t restricted by anything other than your capacity to dream and your willingness to work hard. Adults can be very set in their ways – old dogs, new tricks and all that – but kids can approach problems with a fresh perspective that might be critical to solving an old problem. Yes, you’ll need to learn some things along the way – Einstein had to do his geometry homework just like everyone else – but keep an eye on the longer-term goal of using this knowledge to solve a problem or answer a question that gets you really excited. You may be young, but you can still dare to change the world.</span>
<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"></span></span>
<br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "><span class="Apple-style-span" >Spencer Wells, Ph.D., National Geographic Explorer in Residence.</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0