Three Saratoga High School juniors will travel to Cleveland next month for the International Science & Engineering Fair after taking grand prize honors at the local event. Three other students will go to the California State Science Fair in Los Angeles in late May as a result of being named grand prize alternates.

Saratoga High biology and chemistry teacher Bob Kucer said that even without much guidance and supervision, all eight of the students that went to the fair brought home honors. "They really are great independent learners. It almost makes the teacher feel irrelevant in the process," Kucer said.

Redwood Middle School also did well; three projects earned awards for five students under the tutelage of teacher Gail Inlow.

Winners for the Synopsis Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship were announced at a large ceremony on
March 30.

Juniors Shari Rahbar, Gloria Yiu and Grace Hsu were named grand prize winners. Kucer said Rahbar and Yiu's project, "Antiperspirant-Induced DNA Damage through Breakage on a Single Cell Level" was an idea that they had thought up on their own. The experiment came to fruition after Yiu's mother casually mentioned that she had heard that some deodorants cause cancer.

Hsu's "The Effect of Global Change on Decomposition: Light Availability, Standing Litter and Growth Environment" took six separate awards. Hsu "is not only great in the classroom, but she's also a great independent learner," Kucer said.

The grand prize alternates, who will go to the state fair, are senior Angela Tsai and juniors Megan Li and Michael Lin.

Kucer said Tsai had spent two years working on her project, "The Apototic Trend in CD4 and CD8 TCells." "Her love for science is really in laboratory work and research work," Kucer said of Tsai.

Li and Lin worked together in their research of "Screening for Regulatory Elements of Rapamycin-induced Mep2 Gene Transcription," which earned four awards.

Along with the grand prize winners and alternates, juniors Conway Teng and Ben Tzou also took two cash awards for their joint project, titled "Optimized Imageable Nucleotide Preparation."

Saratoga High has sent students to the county fair for the past three or four years, Kucer said. "They love it when they go. They're off doing science without these classroom deadlines," Kucer said.

According to Kucer, students enjoy looking at their peers' projects and being in an environment with others who are also serious about science. "It's just being in that real nerdy atmosphere," Kucer said.

At Redwood, Matthew Buchanan and Ishan Nagpal took an honorable mention honor as well as a $50 second-place award for their project, "Acrylamide Levels in High Carbohydrate Foods as a Function of Cooking Temperature." Their classmates, Betsy Burgess and Deepti Rajendran, won an Intel Microscope in an effort to answer the question, "What Causes Leaves to Change Color?" Sivakami Sambasivam worked alone on her project, "The Amazing Uses of Static Electricity," and won a $50 cash award.

A complete list of 2003 project details is available at www.science-fair.org.