LRHS BRINGS HOME FIRST PLACE AT CALIFORNIA STATE SCIENCE FAIR

La Reina High School won First Place honors at the California State Science Fair held at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, May 2-3.  Part of the premier, nationwide competition of science projects, the California State Science Fair begins at the school level, with students spending many months developing, completing, and writing their research projects under the purview of their project advisors.  The top projects from the schools then move on to the county level, with the county winners next competing at the state level. This year, there were 1000 participants from 403 schools.

La Reina 8th grader, Arianna Wood, won First Place in the Plant Biology junior division for her project, “Improving the Food Supply and Environment Worldwide: Using Adjuvants to Augment Organic and Conventional Herbicides.”  In her study, she combined different levels of an inexpensive additive with different levels of herbicides in order to discover the most cost-effective method of killing weeds, in order to allow food crops to flourish.  Mrs. Marilyn Usher, La Reina High School science teacher, was the project advisor.  Mrs. Usher was also the project advisor for La Reina 8th grader Alicia Sadowski, who won Third Place in the Environmental Sciences junior division.  In her project titled, “Oil Spills and Dispersants: A Deadly Duo?” she examined the effects of oil dispersants used to treat oil spills.   Both research projects made important findings regarding the global environment and ecosystem.

Pictured (L-R):  Alicia Sadowski '15 and Ariana Wood '15