Indiana Area Senior High School

COURTESY OF ABBY KILLAM and JENNA CONRADOn February 22, 2020, the Indiana Area Senior High School Science Club sent forty-four students to Slippery Rock University to compete in the Region Nine Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science (PJAS) fair.

These students conducted a science project involving research, experimentation, engineering, statistics, and a wide variety of other components.

The students competed with these projects in multiple categories including Behavioral, Earth and Space, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, Mathematics, and more. Thirty-five students earned first place awards based on a scoring rubric, thus advancing to the state level competition at Penn State University this May.

Among these first place awards, Olivia Krimin earned a perfect score in the Chemistry category. Several students also received awards recognizing excellence in their categories.

The Charles “Chick” Stewart Senior High Science Award was awarded to senior Eliza Ray. Yerger was awarded the Innovation Award for Senior High. PJAS Region IX Directors Awards were earned by Paige Mitsko in Senior High Biology, (George) Quanyou Zhang in Senior High Earth and Space, Yahya Farag in Senior High Engineering, Amelia Kuzneski in Senior High Physics, and Emma Grim in Junior High Biochemistry.

Melanie Navaratna and Muneeb Kasi won Slippery Rock Awards in the Senior High Engineering and Junior High Physics categories, respectively.

In addition to the upcoming state level competition, students will be participating in the Covestro Pittsburgh Regional Science & Engineering Fair (PRSEF) at the Carnegie Science Center in March. If you are interested in viewing their work, students will be presenting their projects to the public at IUP on the evening of April 9th on the first floor of the Kovalchik Center and Athletic Complex.

Pictured above: 

Back row: Victor Wu, Athena Yang, Carly Wang, Julian Yerger, Eliza Ray, Jannah Farag, India Krug, Amelia Kusneski, Andrew Kusneski, Maksym Conjelko, Yahya Farag

Second to back row: Gabriel Kenning, Trista Newman, Paige Mitsko, Maggie Conjelko, Nathan Birch, Sarah Rahkonen, Nehal Abhang, Olivia Krimin, Avery Edmonds, Abby Killam

Third row to left of rock: Jenna Conrad, Bernadette Batuncang, Kaylee Becker-George

Second row to left of rock: Chloe Kocinski, Julia Runge, Lee Rosenberger, Tori Manzek, Sophie Runge, Emma Grim

Front left of rock: Jenna McLaine

Above rock: Grace Woolslayer

Third row to right of rock: Shagufta Haque, Caleigh Cessna, Audra Moore, Amna Kasi, Melanie Navaratna, Autumn Smith, Timothy Hague

Second row to right of rock: Omar Fahmy, Alvin Liu, Muneeb Kasi

Front right of rock: Sebastien Sedan, Luca Cosentino