The 2018  Minnesota State Science Fair was held on April 8-10, and the following students from Cotter were participating in the event: Alessia Velasquez-Nitti (left), Grace Finnerty, Grace Menke, Natalya Franz, Allyssa Williams, and Megan Morgan.

Williams, Franz, and Morgan were awarded special awards.  Franz earning a bronze, and Morgan a gold, which put her in the top 5% of all competitors at the fair in both middle school and high school.

SSEF, which stands for State Science & Engineering Fair, is a competition for middle school and high school students in Minnesota based on their knowledge of science, engineering, technology, and math. The highest awards in the competition are offered to the projects that are the most creative and insightful. Those who place first at this state science fair are able to compete in the International Science & Engineering Fair.

Each student has to come up with an idea for their project, plan it, conduct their experiment and test their hypothesis and then write up their findings.

“I tested to see if senior citizens could open child-resistant medicine packages compared to adults. I tested 4 different packages: 3 bottles and a blister pack. All adults opened every container. 40% of senior citizens could not open at least one medicine package” Megan Morgan said.

Morgan also explained that besides just focusing on the educational aspect of the fair, she was also able to meet many other kids her age and have a good time. Many of Megan’s new friends also had very outstanding projects,

“My favorite project consisted of a high-schooler creating a mechanism that alerts you when your oxygen tank is low.” Morgan added.

Alessia Velasquez-Nitti was another participant from Cotter Junior High.

“The fair was really well-organized and I had so much fun!”  Velasqez-Nitti said.

The project Alessia created was about the relationship between sleep deprivation and reaction time of students.

“It was really interesting to see all the other projects and to think that the people there could be our future scientists.”

For another 8th grade student, Grace Finnerty, the highlight of the science fair was seeing how intelligent and inspirational the ideas of her peers were,

“I saw projects that made me feel confident about the future, even in such a crazy time in history, “Finnerty said.

As the supervisor and science teacher of the six girls who attended to science fair, Mrs. Tammy Drazkowski proudly informed us that all six young ladies received first place at the SE MN Regional Science Fair.

“All of the girls did awesome with Williams, Franz, and Morgan taking home special awards.” said Mrs. Drazkowski.