Jan. 24, 2006- The Utah Science Center and the University of Utah today announced they are seeking entries for the 2006 Salt Lake Valley Science and Engineering Fair from fifth through 12th-grade students. Fair organizers also are seeking adults to serve as judges and in other volunteer positions.
The fair will be held March 30-31 at The Tower at Rice-Eccles Stadium on the University of Utah campus. Cynthia Furse – director of the Center of Excellence for Smart Sensors at the University of Utah and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering – will be the keynote speaker.
The fair is open to elementary school students in grades five and six, and middle school and high school students in the following school districts: Salt Lake, Granite, Murray and Tooele. Students in charter, private and home schools in those regions also are encouraged to enter the science fair.
The Salt Lake Valley Science and Engineering Fair provides opportunities for students to showcase their achievements and compete for valuable prizes. Top performers from the event will be invited to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the world’s largest pre-college science fair. Each May, more than 1400 students from some 40 countries gather to compete for $3 million in internships, grants, science equipment and prizes – including the grand prize: a $50,000 college scholarship.
Students must compete in one of the regional Intel ISEF affiliated science fairs to win the right to attend the Intel fair. Each affiliated fair may select two individual projects and one team project to travel to the Intel ISEF to compete in 14 different categories.
Students can register for the fair at http://www.utahsciencecenter.org/sciencefair. The fair is also accepting applications for judges and volunteers. For more information about participating, please visit http://www.utahsciencecenter.org/sciencefair/participate/.
Research categories for the fair include behavioral and social sciences, biochemistry, botany, chemistry, computer science, Earth science, engineering, environmental science, mathematics, medicine and health, microbiology, physics, space science and zoology.
The Salt Lake Valley Science and Engineering Fair is made possible by the Utah Science Center, the University of Utah, The Leonardo, and a generous grant from Intel Corp.
About the Utah Science Center
The Utah Science Center (www.utahsciencecenter.org) emphasizes creative and active exploration of the worlds of science and technology. The Science Center endeavors to create a culture and environment for exploring the factors and phenomena that affect our lives and shape our future. The Utah Science Center, along with Global Artways (www.globalartways.org) – Salt Lake City’s arts education program – and the Center for Documentary Arts (www.cdautah.org), will find a permanent home in The Leonardo (www.theleonardo.org), an art, culture and science center being developed in the former main Salt Lake City Public Library building on Library Square.
About the University of Utah
The University of Utah (www.utah.edu) is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. Founded in 1850, it is the first and largest public higher education institution in Utah, with more than 28,000 students from all 50 states and 102 countries, and a campus comprising almost 1,500 acres in the eastern foothills of the Wasatch Mountains in Salt Lake City. A major academic and research institution with an extensive health sciences center, the university offers majors in 72 subjects at the undergraduate level and more than 90 major fields of study at the graduate level, including law and medical schools.