Tucson area students show off their talents at science fair

March 18, 2008

By hammersmith

[Source: Alan Fischer, Tucson Citizen] — Alyssa Betancourt’s science project showed how global warming is bad for the Earth. Dallas Hodge designed and built a robotic arm that would be at home on a Martian explorer. The pair, along with about 3,000 other southern Arizona students, are displaying their work at the Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair that takes place at the Tucson Convention Center Exhibition Hall this week.

About 1,300 science projects by individuals, teams and classes for students ranging from kindergarten to high school will be judged Tuesday and displayed for the public Wednesday through Friday, said Kathleen Bethel, director of the event and principal at Los Ranchitos Elementary School in the Sunnyside Unified School District. Four $2,000 scholarships from the SciEnTeK-12 Foundation will be awarded, she said.

The science fair is a great way to get kids interested in a technical career, said Cindy Islas, a program facilitator at Los Ni