This has been a year like no other for so many of us, including our presenters at this year’s Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science Regional Competition. While usually held in person at Snyder Middle School on the last Saturday in February, the format this year switched to an asynchronous virtual meet in order to accommodate pandemic restrictions. Despite all the challenges and changes to their experiments and presentations that had to be made to meet these accommodations, our students exceeded all expectations.
Thirty-seven Bensalem High School students participated with twenty-six students earning first place awards. Congratulations to: Ali Ahmad, Danielle Armstrong, Sia Desai, Sofia Ferrandez, Krishiv Gandhi, Tiffany Gao, Kaitlyn Higgins, Jeffrey Ho, Kathleen Ho, Taylor Hood (Perfect Score), Hugh Kominsky, Julia Mathews, Brian Olsen, Maxwell Palamarchuk, Shiv Parekh, Mohak Parmar, Aastha Patel, Aayushi Patel, Astha Patel, Gunjan Patel, Jia Patel, Jiya Patel, Mahi K. Patel, Diya Shah, Zaid Shaik, and Vedika Sharma.
The eleven BHS students who earned second place awards are: Edward Barber, Sara Devlin, David Larbi, Patrick Le, Asha Paul, Sami Rana, Aditya Rao, Ayush Patel, Krina Patel, Neesha Patel, and Shivam Patel.
The high school students were sponsored by Mrs. Lisa Tokmajian.
In the Middle School Division, two Cecelia Snyder Middle School students participated with both earning first place awards. Congratulations to: Michael Larbi and Diya Patel.
The Snyder students were sponsored by Miss Kate Liese and Mr. Tom Hoffman.
Earning a first place award will allow these talented young scientists to compete at the virtual PJAS State Meet in May. Congratulations to all our participants!