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County Science Fair: From Curing Cancer to Testing Dish Soap

Hundreds of student scientists competed for cash prizes and entrance into the State Science Fair.

One high school student came up with an algorithm that could diagnose cancer. A sixth grader tried to document whether birds chose seeds by color. Another enterprising student sought to prove whether bicycle helmets were safe, using a watermelon in place of a head.

Science was bigger than football or any sport Saturday night as the Santa Cruz County Science Fair drew parents and students to the County Fairgrounds in Watsonville to see 400 exhibits from the best and brightest science students in the county.

The students with the best projects from each school were invited to compete in the fair, and about 40 award-winning projects will be chosen to go to the state competition April 30 - May 1 in Los Angeles. From there, the top projects from the junior and senior divisions will go on to international competition in May in Pennsylvania.

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The student science projects fall into 16 categories, including botany, behavioral science, environmental science, electronics and physics. The competition is sponsored by Seagate Technology.

“It’s an opportunity to study something that they want to study, rather than something that’s part of the curriculum," science fair coordinator Adam Wade said. "They have a little more freedom to explore something deeper.”  

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Senior award-winner Abraham Karplus did an experiment testing the effectiveness of algorithms at diagnosing cancer. He designed one of the algorithms himself, which his mentor, UC-Santa Cruz Associate Professor Joshua Stuart, said is something "most college-level computer scientists only attempt to code.”

Karplus, whose father, Kevin, is a professor of bioinformatics at UCSC, said, “I’ve only done a few algorithms. There’s a lot more I want to do.”  

He attended Santa Cruz High School last year and started a robotics club with his father, which is open to students from any school.

Sara Pedro, a sixth-grader from Rio Del Mar Elementary School, did a project to determine if color affects the type of seeds that birds prefer.

She said she enjoyed taking pictures of birds for the project and liked being interviewed by the judges so she could explain her experiment.

“I picked this idea, because it had to do with birds, and I love birds,” Pedro said.

Michelle Alvarez-Vargas, in the K-3 group, won an award for a daring experiment that crashed a bicycle helmet with a watermelon in it to demonstrate the safety of various helmets.

Another student did experiments to prove whether "anti-bacterial" soap really kills bacteria.

The county awards ceremony will take place 7-9 p.m. March 20 at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. Winners of the top four projects from each category and age division will receive awards, and winners of the top two projects in each division win between $125-$1000.

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