SYNOPSIS:

Mike Kruk and Mike Spinar from the CIAMS acted as judges for the Illinois Academy of Science's Central Illinois Regional Science Fair on March 19, 2005. The fair, which was held at the LincolnLand Community College in Springfield, Illinois, hosted middle school and high school students from around the region. The projects were divided into categories, such as physics, earth sciences, psychology, and environmental science. We had the opportunity to judge the projects in the earth and environmental science categories to hand out two AMS awards.

After examining approximately 10 projects, we decided that two presentations best met the award criteria. The first was given to a high-school student  for a project that examined the sensitivity of density-driven currents to salinity. The second, was awarded to a middle-school student for a project examining the relative accuracy of forecasts in the summer, as opposed to the fall. It was our opinion that the students in both cases had done the vast majority of the work on their own, he or she understood the background material and the purpose of their project, the student was able to exercise the scientific method effectively, and the project was pertinent to meteorology and the related earth sciences.