ILLINOIS:
I had the privilege of being a Special Awards Judge at the IJAS (Illinois Junior Academy of Science) State Science Fair on May 3rd, 2008. The fair was held at Assembly Hall on the campus of the University of Illinois at Champaign, Il.

I observed and listened to the oral presentation for about 15 Microbiology projects. Many of these young people have access to equipment and resources that would have been unheard of a few years ago. A few have embraced the molecular world well beyond my own experience.

I did have trouble deciding on one project that stood out from the rest until almost the last project I viewed.

This young lady had done a previous study of green tea against E coli, and was not satisfied, knowing that tea is composed of many compounds. She decided to use a compound called ECGC, that is one component of green tea and is a known antioxidant. She was able to obtain a small amount of ECGC to test and had a well designed project, exposing E coli to the compound, and comparing it to prescrition antibiotics. She is headed to the University of Wisconsin at Madison next year, and I hope she will do well in her study of Biology there.

I presented her with the first prize of $100 and the plaque and certificate.

My second choice was actually a junior high student that studied the difference between anti-fungal agents that were "conventional", like tolnaphtate (sp?), and "natural" agents like tea tree oil. His project was well designed, had several trials and was quite interesting. He actually used bread mold, which is a far cry from athelete's foot fungus, but the results were still intriguing.

He received $50 and a certificate.

Third place went to a team of two students that were examining the "5 second rule" Their visual display was excellent. They used several categories of food, and planted the floor (actually a floor tile) with Bacillus subtilis and timed the exposure to 5 seconds, then compared it to clean floor tile exposure. The girls also measured bacteria levels in the food items without any floor exposure. They also did a statistical analysis of the opinions of students in their school who actually believed in the "5 second rule"

They each received $25 and a certificate.

I have the names, project titles, and the schools for each of these students, but did not meet any parents to get permission to print the names.