CVHS students William and Daniel Panosyan worked on a project that ended up winning second place in the behavioral and social sciences category. Their project was about global disparities in pediatric cancer survival rates. They found that acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) survival rates increased as GDP grew.

“Our project suggests that improving GDP per capita of less developed nations will drastically increase ALL survival rates and help to alleviate outcome disparities in poorer nations,” said Daniel.

CVHS freshman Easan Hamkins won second place in physics and received a special award of $100 from the American Vacuum Society.

“I have played trumpet for seven years and am in CVHS symphony orchestra. There have been many COVID-19 precautions implemented in our instrumental music organization including spreading six feet apart, using masks for our instruments, wearing special musician masks, having air filters, opening doors, and getting tested weekly for coronavirus,” Hamkins said. “It made me wonder how much saliva wind instruments produced. I tried to answer this by using a laser to light up saliva droplets being ejected from instruments, collecting the saliva, and using potassium iodide starch strips to visualize the droplets on paper.”

CVHS student Kelly Fung won third place in plant biology and physiology at LACSEF.

“My project was about the impact of concentrated CO2 on mung bean plants and if it would help their germination and growth,” said Fung.

Many students received special awards and recognition. Rosalia Park received an honorable mention in environmental management, Shauna Hong received an award from NASA, Justin Jeong and Marta Pambukhchyan received a Stockholm Junior Water Prize. Christine Kim and Kalia Manayan received awards from the U.S. Air Force. Additional recognition was given to CVHS students David Ajemyan, Maryam Akelyan, Calliope Araz, Haley Kim, Shauna Hong, Kalia Manayan, Christine Kim, and Justin Jeong.

Many of the CVHS and Mountain Avenue Elementary students enjoyed the LACSEF.

Mountain Avenue sixth grade student Pranav said, “I created a slide deck, a report, a YouTube video and a logbook. I also had an interview with judges who asked me questions about my project. The process was fun because I got to use my creativity to design and make everything. I learned about the eye and software. I liked my first experience at the science fair and I encourage others to participate at LACSEF.”
CVHS Academy of Science and Medicine and science research class helped prepare the students for LACSEF.

Hamkins said, “The Science Research Class gave me a timeline for where I should be in my project and helped me stay motivated. I was surrounded by helpful and experienced upperclassmen shared what to expect for the LACSEF. The CVHS Fair judges gave me advice I needed to take my project to the next level.”

Kelly Fung said, “The CVHS science fair helped so much! I got feedback on what I can do to change the way I present my information and how I can better collect it. The biggest help was the science research class. From Ms. Tuason and Mrs. Arunachalam giving feedback on my slides to classmates giving their own suggestions, I had a lot to work with.”