By Mike Block, Marla Odom, and Maya Teyechea
On April 12, several AHS judges reviewed water projects at the annual Southern Arizona Science and Engineering Fair and gave awards to the most deserving. A total of $700 in prize money was awarded to K–12 projects, with funding provided by Central Arizona Project and the AHS Foundation. A little more than 2,000 projects were submitted this year. Thanks to the AHS judges who volunteered their time… and congratulations to the winners!
$25 Kindergarten: San Simon School BIE: Sink or Float? This class of 18 tested the principle of buoyancy with pumpkins by guessing if it would sink or float.
$25 1st Grade: Innovation Academy: Renewable Rain Systems. This class of 25 tested various roof materials to evaluate efficiency in water harvesting.
$50 2nd Grade: Olive Crites, Fruchthendler Elementary School: Got Water? Her project involved measuring how much ET occurs from desert trees for water harvesting.
$50 3rd Grade: Griffin Miller and Daniel Pew-Kenyon, Academy of Mathematics and Science. Barometric Pressure. Their project involved collecting barometric pressure readings and predicting weather conditions.
$50 4th Grade: Ruben Flores and Jason Wyant, BASIS Tucson: Germs Stop Swimming in the Water. This project involved using various low-cost, easily obtainable materials to decontaminate e-coli from water supplies after natural disasters.
$50 4th Grade: Riley Blank, Butterfield Elementary School: Pump It Up. This project involved evaluating whether or not water can be pumped uphill without electricity, using nothing but potential and kinetic energy.
$50 5th Grade: Preston J. Stricker, Fruchthendler Elementary School: Surface Temperature and Water Transparency of Two Arizona Lakes. This project involved using a Secki disk to measure water clarity, and determine if there was a relationship between water transparency and water temperature.
$50 6th Grade: Bryce Randall Drummond, Aqua Caliente Elementary School: Wash Water Transporter. Bryce built a wash water transporter to collect rain water during flood events.
$50 6th Grade: Anna Wall, Aqua Caliente Elementary School: Cleaning Dirty Water.
$50 7th Grade: Megan Connolly and Jillian Howayeck, Doolen Middle School: Salty Solutions. This project involved three different examples of media mixtures to discover which worked best to remove salt from water.
$100 7th Grade: Hailey Chulamorkodt, R Pete Woodard Jr High School: Water Recycling with the Smart Drain. This project involved using gray water to refill toilet bowls.
$50 8th Grade: Ryan Raymond, Academy of Tucson Middle School: How Accurate is a Pima County Flood Control Rain Gauge. His project involved an evaluation of comparing his rainfall measurements at a County rain gauge site to the County rain gauge.
$100 High School: Sara C. Byars and Damion Robles, Flowing Wells High School: Soil Runoff and Water Quality. Their project involved an assessment of water quality properties of various soil mixtures.
