Science Education News (SEN) Journal 2017 Volume 66 Number 4 December 2017 | Page 8

ASSOCIATION NEWS
2017 STANSW Young Scientist ISEF (continued)
ISEF 2017 – Los Angeles, California
investigation. Then when you extend this number nationally and
then internationally it is easy to understand how 7 million Year
9-12 students enter projects at school level in ISEF affiliated
regional fairs around the world.
So to be selected in the top 1778 projects around the world is a
significant feat in itself. At ISEF 2017, only 440 projects (24.75%)
won a Grand Award. Of these Grand Award winners only 38
(2.1%) won a 1st place Grand Award so you can appreciate how
significant Macinley’s achievement was against the best in the
world.
ISEF Finalists’ Project Details and Highlights
Each ISEF finalist was interviewed by our teacher chaperone Ian
Fairhurst at their ISEF display in a live-streamed event on the day
after judging. The following accounts of their projects and their
highlight of the week have been paraphrased below
Both Maddison King (above) and Jade Moxey had special
interviews with reporters from Science News.
Maddison King’s HSC Design and Technology project ‘Clever
Girl’ received extra public interest in Los Angeles, with CNN
featuring her innovative “rip-warning device”.
Mary-Anne Poyitt, Redeemer Baptist School, Up the Creek
3rd Place Grand Award: Plant Sciences
Eleanor Lawton-Wade (centre) from PLC Sydney won a USD
$1000 Special Award from the King Abdul-Aziz & his Companions
Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity Award, for her project
exploring the chemical and biological changes that could occur
to freshwater ecosystems if temperatures rise due to global
warming.
Significance of a Grand Award
With 177,000 Year 9 & 10 students in NSW alone who all must do
a mandatory Student Research Project for their Stage 5 Science
course sometime in their two year course, and then when you
extend this to Year 11 and 12, you would have close to 100,000
NSW students annually who complete some form of scientific
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 66 NO 4