Gallery • 3 Photos

Diana Coronado

Display of all the science fair projects of the participates of elementary students all the way to high school students.

The 30th annual Kern County Science Fair took place at the Rabobank Convention Center on March 8.

This year, the event had the honor of welcoming Carl Kloock, Professor of Biology at California State University Bakersfield, as its keynote speaker. He has been teaching at the university since 2001. He is also the coordinator for the Natural Science degree program.

Participants as young as elementary to high school students took part in the event, providing a huge variety of different experiments displayed to the public.

The event began at 9 a.m. with Kloock’s speech, judging of the students’ projects, followed by the public viewing of their work, ending with an award ceremony for the winning candidates.

“My son really enjoyed the process, he put a lot of work into his project with months in advance,” said Vicky Perez, mother of a participant. “I strongly feel it’s more about enjoying themselves and exploring their creative side, as a matter of fact my older son made it to state and I am very happy they both had fun.”

Between 1-3 p.m., the floor was open to the public to enjoy and read about the different projects of the students.

“Based on the project ‘What is Air Quality in my City?’ I thought a lot of hard work was put into it, the student followed his thoughts with strong evidence, it is easy to see that months of research and dedication was put into this project” Vilma Pineda said.

The one project that caught people’s attention the most was the “Illegal Immigrants and Crime, The Hard Statistics”.

“I think it is very impressive how big their interest is especially on such a serious topic now a day

, you can see how much work was put into it, hopefully it opens up the eyes of many people,” Andy Polanco said.

First and second place winners may be eligible to compete in the 67th annual California Science Fair that will take place at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on April 23-24.