Photo credit: Georgia Lebowitz

Science Fair students Sabrina Rifkin (’28) and Jaya Srinivasan (’28) discuss their experiments in class. “I think [Science Fair] is fun,” Rifkin said. “I’m definitely more in it, not for the competition, but for the experience.”

A classroom full of scientists plan and conduct experiments in their Science Fair US-FLX course annually. The elective is open to high school students, and it is aimed to encourage problem-solving and overcoming adversity within the scientific field. Students in the class create a project of their choosing from scratch, as long as it is safe, doable and fundable.

With the help of science teacher Jerilyn Neshek, who began teaching the course in 2017, students conduct extensive research, experimentation and preparation in order to present a final project at the LA County Science and Engineering Fair. The science fair occurred March 9-10 at the Shrine Auditorium.

Ninth grader Sabrina Rifkin, a student in the class, was inspired by past experiments and said she is always ready to learn. Her project investigated the effectiveness of ginger, garlic and turmeric in fighting bacteria. She experimented with three different plants that have bacteria-fighting properties to understand if one can use plants instead of medicine to help fight bacteria and sickness.

The Oracle sat down with Rifkin and Neshek to discuss their passions for and experiences with the Science Fair.

What is the purpose of science fair to you?

Sabrina Rifken [SR]: The purpose of science fair is to find a topic that interests you and then to design an experiment to be able to learn more about it. It’s self-led, although you do get feedback from teachers … And then you also get to compete against other people in LA and get to see their experiments. You just get the experience of designing and running your own experiment.

Jerilyn Neshek [JN]: Real life science, like what you would do if you had a scientific job. There isn’t a textbook when you’re out in the real world. You are solving problems and are creating ideas and that’s what you do in science fair.

What are the key objectives or goals of science fair?

[SR]: I think one of the biggest goals is to find a topic that interests you, and you get to just explore it even deeper. For me, I’ve gotten to explore this topic of plants and medicinal properties so much further. 

[JN]: There’s a lot of takeaways. You build your like skills of different processes and tools [and] you learn to create a good argument. There’s a lot of research in it, there’s so many skills you learn with the process, but the goal is just to do science, like real science.

What are some challenges that you have faced?

[SR]: I think a challenge was designing my experiment and making sure it would work. Although I had a few errors, it ended up working, but you definitely can’t predict how it goes.

[JN]: This year was the year of problem-solving and tolerance for adversity because anything that could go wrong this year went wrong. First, all the big fires happened, and projects were ongoing … And then some of our chemicals were on back order, so we couldn’t get them. So we were just problem solving. It was like, ‘Okay, that’s not going to happen. What should we do differently? How should we do this differently?’ And that’s a skill that you gain.

What do you think are the most important skills that students develop through participating in science fair?

[SR]: I think one of the biggest skills is time management because you really need to organize your experiment. You need to know how long things take, and you need to plan accordingly. [You need to] know when you’ll be able to go into the room to do your project. Also, you need to be on top of it, have your data table ready to collect your data and be ready with your materials. So organization and time management are the biggest [skills].

[JR]: Your writing skills, your research skills and using different scientific tools and techniques. You’re learning that there are so many different facets that you’re learning just by being able to do a project that you’re passionate about.

How do you think science fair contributes to fostering a passion for science in Archer students?

[SR]: It definitely contributes to fostering your passions because you get to research something that you picked and that’s something that’s important to you. I chose a topic that I’ve been interested in, and I’ve continued to feel passionate about it. Because I chose it, it deepened my passion.

What goals do you have for science fair in the future?

[JN]: I want to keep up the level of work that [we’re] doing. As different students transition out, because some of these students have been in the program since seventh grade or eighth grade … it leaves space for new people who are coming in with new ideas, which is great. So we need to make sure everybody meets that same level that we’ve done in the past.