High School students to display science projects
By Kate Daly Contributing Writer

Marlborough - Student scientists and engineers will compete in the annual Marlborough High School (MHS) Science and Engineering Fair Tuesday Feb. 26, but the event is about much more than competition.

"The goal is actually to give the students an opportunity to present the work that they've done to others," said Bill Rigney, science and engineering coordinator for grades six through 12. "Sometimes I liken the fair to a football game. You do all this practice and all this work to prepare, and this is the event."

This year, the fair will include the technology/engineering department for the first time and the title was changed to include that department.

"It's interesting how it tends to operate because they're different departments," Rigney said. "We talk about it up here [in the science department], but they do it down there, putting together math and science."

While all students are required to do a science project, the science fair is optional, Rigney said. Two weeks before the fair, 81 projects had been submitted, with 190 students participating. Many of the students work in teams, he said, accounting for the diff erence in the number of projects and students.

"I know that we'll have the range," he said. "You'll see biology projects with kids working with bacteria, various physics projects."

A challenge from Rigney's perspective is finding judges. He likes to have each project reviewed four times, and he doesn't want to overload the judges.

"Right now we've secured 40 judges," he said. "Each judge has to do eight projects, which isn't too bad."

Rigney hopes to find a few more judges, on the chance that one or more may be unable to attend after all. The judges generally come from local companies, including Intel, Boston Scientific, and Rohm and Haas, he said.

The science and engineering fair will be in the John C. Colleary Field House at 431 Bolton St. Judging will begin at 8:30 a.m., and the fair is open to the public from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

As many a 1,000 people pass through the fair each year, he said. The students begin by choosing their project early in the school year and work on it until the fair, he said.

"It's really just a lot of normal kids sometimes doing some very good science," he added.