Three RESA students chosen as national science contest winners

From press release

“Mini” magazines written and illustrated by three sixth-grade students at Rockford Environmental Science Academy were honored in the Year of Science 2009 “Zine” contest.

Santino Chavez won a $250 award with “Scientific Methods in Earth Science,” while Lindsay Gross and Natalia Phorasavong won $25 each for “Nature of Science” and “Lab Safety Rules,” respectively.

The contest is sponsored by the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS). More than 250 submissions were entered worldwide, and the three RESA students were among just 32 winners. Each “zine” combined science and art to tell a compact story about science.

Winners were selected based on four criteria: scientific content/fidelity to topic, visual appeal/communication, readability and original perspective on the topic. Judges included three faculty members from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and scientists from the Field Museum in Chicago, the University of Illinois Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley.

Click here to view the “zines.”

RESA teacher Carol Kraft submitted the best “zines” from among her science classes last October and learned her students were named winners this month. “I am ecstatic they were chosen,” Kraft said. “It is a great honor for them.”