Filipino students win Intel ISEF grand awards in Oregon

By RUBY CRISTOBAL
MediaCore, SEI

Filipino students won three grand awards and a top organizational award in the 55th Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a weeklong competition among more than 1,200 students from 38 countries.

Students of Manila Science High School's team project called "Development of a Chemically Modified Carbon Paste Electrode from Green Mussels (Perna viridis) for the Analysis of Lead (II) through Voltammetry,"  won the third grand award in chemistry.

Another team project of Quezon City Science High School students entitled "Lumos: A Simple, Rapid and Inexpensive Dissolved Oxygen Determination of Wastewater Samples Using the Tube Bioluminiscence Extinction Method of Vibrio fischeri USTCMS 1063," earned the fourth grand award in environmental science.

Joy Anne Lim Aquino, a student of E. Rodriguez High School in Quezon City also garnered fourth grand award in medicine and health, along with a top organizational award from the American Veterinary Medicine Association for her project dubbed "Biologically-Guided Isolation of the Antimicrobial Component on the Sea Snake Laticauda colubrine Schneider Venom."

The 55th Intel ISEF, the world's largest pre-college science competition was held in Portland, Oregon last May 9-15.  It is the only international science project competition for students in the ninth through twelfth grades.

The Intel ISEF brings together students, teachers, corporate executives, and government officials from around the world. 

Students compete for over $3 million in scholarships, tuition grants, scientific equipment, and scientific trips.  Each year, up to five million students complete science research projects and about 1,200 of them earn the right to compete in Intel ISEF.

Across the United States and around the world, 500 Intel ISEF-affiliated science fairs send two individual finalists and one team project to compete at the international level.  Students compete for scholarships in 15 categories such as behavioral and social sciences, biochemistry, botany, chemistry, computer science, earth and space sciences, engineering, environmental science, gerontology, mathematics, medicine and health, microbiology, physics, team projects, and zoology.

In the Philippines, project entries to Intel ISEF are chosen through the multi-level Intel Philippine Science Fair, an Intel ISEF affiliated and sponsored activity administered by the Science Education Institute of the Department of Science and Technology.

The Philippine Science Fair brings together science enthusiasts in a competition that challenges their knowledge and attitude about science.  This strategy is adopted to increase students' interests in science and technology and to encourage them to pursue science careers in the future.