I had the honor and pleasure of teaming up, once again, with Dr. Martin Jones to judge projects in the Junior Environmental Division at the 76th annual San Luis Valley Regional Science Fair on Feb. 27 and 28. Joined by one other colleague, our team interviewed the creators of five great projects competing in that division. This year’s event hosted approximately 200 projects presented by 220 students from eight school districts around the Valley. All 11 divisions were represented again this year.  

As I perused the room on Thursday afternoon I was encouraged and even amused at some of the punchier project titles. How To Not Blow Up a Cow actually made me laugh and stop to read for a minute. Light It Before You Bite It was another title that quickly caught my eye. I was intrigued by Magnetic Slime Project and had to take a brief look at it. The confident young ladies that presented Crimson Tide: Surfing Your Monthly Wave really impressed me. Finally, I was excited to get to judge the project Mineral Mining Monsters – Time Will Tail. Many more titles served to intrigue, attract, and inform the judges as we made our rounds and interviewed the amazing young presenters on Friday.  

Judging projects developed by these bright young minds is not as easy as it might seem. They know their projects and, most of them, very well. We read their papers and examine the display boards that they’ve worked very hard to author and create. The boards are designed to display the course of the student’s journey through the project. On the boards, they identify their problem and purpose, how they researched and conducted experiments to gather data, how they evaluated their data, the conclusions they’ve drawn and whether their hypothesis was supported or not. In roughly 20 years of judging science fair projects I’ve never cared if a hypothesis was supported or not. I really just want to find out if the process the student used was sound and followed accepted scientific procedures, they interpreted their data correctly, and if there is a practical application to their project. Most often there is. Most importantly, I want to know that student was fully engaged in critical thinking. I always hope that their research has prompted more questions than it has answered. Finally, I truly hope they had fun! 

Professionals from various disciplines asked important questions, learned much, and provided meaningful feedback to the students. The Rio Grande National Forest has always supported this event. We embrace the future of our community and indeed, the possibility that some of these students might work for our agency in the future. This year, I even brought Franco Perez, a Chemistry student from Argentina here on a work visa, to serve as a judge in his field. Franco’s comment: “I’m really impressed!” 

In last year’s column about the science fair, I mentioned how it takes a village to support these worthy endeavors of our promising youth. Once again, I was impressed at the smooth running of this event with Loree Harvey now at the helm. The ever-present Lucy Adams still getting things done with the support of the great board of directors was no surprise. The community support was, again, dazzling to me. It seems like everyone knows about and supports this great event in some way or another. My hat is off to you, San Luis Valley residents, for promoting hard work, critical thinking and professional development in our youth during this wonderful event. From what I see year after year at the science fair, we have a very bright future.  

Gregg Goodland is the Public Affairs Officer for the Rio Grande National Forest. An avid outdoor enthusiast, promoting the safe and responsible use of our public lands is his lifelong mission.