The Academy sponsors, supports, or participates in a number of special activities in response to the mandate of its Charter to: “… promote interest in science and engineering on the part of the public, especially young people.” Each year, the Academy recognizes event winners who participated in the Connecticut Science Challenge, Connecticut Science Fair, Connecticut Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, the Connecticut Invention Convention, and the National Siemens Westinghouse Competition at the Academy’s Annual Meeting and Awards Dinner in May. Funding for all student and school awards is provided from contributions to the Academy’s Student Awards Fund by the members of the Academy and by Gerber Scientific, Inc., for its sponsorship of the H. Joseph Gerber Medal of Excellence

Connecticut Science Challenge

The national Intel Science Talent Search, administered by Science Service, is sponsored by the world’s largest chipmaker, Intel Corporation. Formerly known as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, the national contest is America’s oldest and most highly regarded science competition for high school seniors that is intended to stimulate student interest in science, math and technology. Alumni include 6 Nobel Laureates, 3 National Medal of Science winners, and 35 members of the prestigious National Academies of Sciences and Engineering. High school students from around the United States participate in this prestigious annual science project competition. Additionally, the projects of the state’s finalists and semifinalists are subsequently judged for state honors in the Connecticut Science Challenge.

This year a total of 1,705 students representing 46 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and five overseas schools entered the national competition, including 21 students from Connecticut. A total of 40 students won honors as finalists and 300 students were selected as semi-finalist winners. Three students from Connecticut were awarded semi-finalist honors. Each of Connecticut’s semifinalist winners and their respective schools received awards of $1,000.

The 2007 Connecticut Science Challenge first place winner was Miles C. Lubin for his project A Parametric Statistics-based Heuristic for Finding the Nearest Neighbor in Metric Space. He was also a winner of the H. Joseph Gerber Medal of Excellence. (Please see the H. Joseph Gerber Medal of Excellence for a listing of the winners of this award.)

Second place honors in the Connecticut competition, which included a $500 award from the Academy, went to national finalist Sophie Cai, Ridgefield High School, Ridgefield, CT, for her project A Novel Technique for Revealing Serial and Parallel Mechanisms in Visual Processing. Also, honorable mention, which included an award of $250 from the Academy, was awarded to Ayesha Samant, Convent of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich, CT, for her project The Impact of Structure and Pore Size on the Controlled Release of Fluorescein Isothionate from Poly (ethylene co-vinyl-acetate) Matrices.

These winners also received a Certificate of Recognition from the Academy and an Official Statement of recognition from Governor M. Jodi Rell.

Connecticut Science Fair

The 2007Connecticut Science Fair was held in March at Quinnipiac College in Hamden.

To promote interest in science and engineering, and to recognize those high school students whose science projects are judged to be the best of the senior division in each of the two major categories, Life Sciences and Physical Sciences, the Academy provides special awards each year to the top two winners of the Connecticut Science Fair.

The winners received the H. Joseph Gerber Medal of Excellence, including a solid silver medal and a $1,000 honorarium. In addition, they received a Certificate of Recognition from the Academy and an Official Statement of recognition from Governor M. Jodi Rell. (Please see the H. Joseph Gerber Medal of Excellence for a listing of the winners of this award.)

Connecticut Junior Science and Humanities Symposium

The Connecticut Junior Science and Humanities Symposium is sponsored by the University of Connecticut and is part of the national US Army Junior Science and Humanities Symposia Program. The Academy joined with other corporations and institutions in support of this event.

The 2007 symposium was held in March at the University of Connecticut. The symposium has been effective in enhancing student motivation, stimulating original research and promoting the setting for exciting scientific meetings. It is intended to recognize students who have demonstrated intellectual achievement and promise. This event provides a forum for selected high school students to present a variety of technical papers and posters, meet in small discussion groups with leading scientists from Connecticut industries, and utilize special facilities at the university to explore technical and ethical challenges of current science. The Academy recognizes the top five oral presenters and their respective schools. The winners are as follows:

Antonella Lisanti, Staples High School, Westport, CT
Topic: Images of Active Galactic Nuclei in the MUSYC Survey

Tatiana Cooke, Greenwich High School, Greenwich, CT
Topic: Population Survival of Ced-3 Deficient C. elegans in a Soil Environment

Mary Keneally, New Canaan High School, New Canaan, CT
Topic: Haptoglobin-Related Protein in Chimpanzees

Willie Mandeville, New Milford High School, New Milford, CT
Topic: Applying the Lotka-Volterra Model of Interspecific Competition to Invasive Plant Infiltration

Andrew Taylor, Newtown High School, Sandy Hook, CT
Topic: The Stimulation, Fabrication and Testing of Novel Metamaterial at a Near-Infrared Frequency

These students and their schools were recognized by the Academy at the JSHS awards ceremony. The students received Certificates of Recognition, and books containing bookplates with the seal of the Academy were presented to both the students and their school libraries in the name of the Academy. Each high school was also recognized with a Letter of Commendation and a $300 donation to its science department to further science and mathematics education from the Academy. Additionally, Governor M. Jodi Rell issued an Official Statement to each high school in recognition of this outstanding achievement.

CT Invention Convention

The Connecticut Invention Convention is a program that seeks to provide students in grades K-8 with a meaningful opportunity to develop and encourage creative thinking and invention. The Invention Convention

program is designed to integrate all aspects of a student’s educational experience in an effort to solve real-life problems by understanding and using creative skills. The convention provides an opportunity for student inventors to participate in a friendly competition and to share their ideas with each other as well as adult inventors, engineers, patent attorneys and other professionals.

For 2007, the Academy recognized the 15 middle school student winners of the Invention Convention with Certificates of Recognition and monetary awards ($50 US Savings Bonds).

CPTV Family Science Expo

The 15th Annual CPTV Family Science Expo was held in April 2007 at the Connecticut Expo Center in Hartford. This innovative program, for children in kindergarten through eighth grade, encourages the understanding of science applications in our everyday lives and how science affects the future. The Academy participates in the development of the CPTV Family Science Expo as a member of the event’s Science Advisory Committee.