February 23, 2008 News Media Release

Murchison and Vista Ridge continue dominance at Regional Science Fair

Vista Ridge High School of the Leander Independent School District and Murchison Middle School of the Austin Independent School District were Sweepstakes winners at the Austin Energy Regional Science Festival February 20-23—outperforming 10 other high schools and 31 middle schools respectively. Sweepstakes goes to the Senior High and Middle School with the most 1st-5th place finishes in the 18 science categories judged during the competition. The 650 projects entered in the competition had all won at science fairs in the respective schools.

Murchison has now won Sweepstakes in 8 of the last 9 years. Vista Ridge, which is only 5 years old, won for the 3rd consecutive year. Vista Ridge students also won two out of three “Best of Fair” awards which go to the best projects among all 1st place winners in the high school division. Best of Fair was awarded to two individual projects and one team project.

Vivian Lee, a Senior at Vista Ridge, won Best of Fair for her project in the Behavioral and Social Sciences category. The project, which investigated various musical tonal qualities by analysis of their harmonic spectrums, was entitled: "A Study of Varying Harmonic Spectrum Exposure on Students' Concentration During Spatial Reasoning: Examination as Assessed via Fourier Analysis and Statistical Test."

Kapil Ramachandran, a Senior at Westwood High School, won Best of Fair in the Cellular & Molecular Biology science category. His project, entitled “Molecular Genetics of Alcohol Addiction: A Novel Role of Diazepam-Binding Proteins,” used mutant analysis to identify genes important for producing alcohol tolerance.

The Best of Fair Team Project award went to Rachel Sullivan and Emily Wagoner, both Juniors at Vista Ridge. Their project in the Microbiology science category entitled "Bacteria on Fruits and Vegetables," examined whether washing methods decrease the bacteria present on produce.

Best of Fair winners advance to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Atlanta, Georgia May 11-17.

Meanwhile, some 110 middle school and high school students advance from the Austin regional competition to the State Science Fair, the ExxonMobil Texas Science and Engineering Fair April 10-12 in San Antonio. Those advancing placed 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in the 18 science categories judged from Math and Computer Science to Biochemistry and Cellular & Molecular Biology.

The Austin Energy Regional Science Festival is one of the largest of 19 regional science festivals in Texas. This year’s event featured 2,400 science projects of students 1st-12th grade, from 188 schools representing 23 central Texas school districts.

The festival is planned and executed by Austin Energy staff and requires, among other things, 450 judges and more than 150 volunteers. Synopsys Corporation provided $10,000 to underwrite travel expenses to send the Best of Fair winners and their science teachers to the International Science fair. And Intel Corporation provided $10,000 to support the awards, trophies and scholastic recognitions to winning students. The Austin Energy regional Science Festival is held annually at the Palmer Events Center.

For more information, contact Ed Clark, Public Information.
Phone: (512) 322-6514
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