Wheeling High School students qualify for state science fair

Wheeling High School has qualified for the Illinois Junior Academy Science State Fair after students' projects won several awards at the regional competition.

The students who participated are in Wheeling's nanotechnology or investigatory design programs. Five of their projects advanced to the state fair, and Wheeling students won two cash awards and three gold, nine silver and three bronze medals.

The nonprofit IJAS, a non-profit organization, gives students insight into the problems and methods of scientists. The Academy encourages students to go beyond the classroom curriculum and develop their own investigations with scientific equipment.

In the investigatory design program, Zalman Faltushanskiy won gold while Jacob Sweetow won silver.

In the nanotechnology program, the state qualifiers and gold medalists are Phillip Cozariuc, Brian Lorey, Isabel Chan, Hiba Fakhoury, Eric Rivas, Vincent Parra, Kyle Levy, Ashley Talken and Jieun Kim.

Alyx Villada and Victor Santamaria were gold medalists and selected as state alternates. Additional gold medals were won by Alex Rybak, Kevin Abraham and Wade DeGraff.

Silver medals were won by Jacob Jordan, Eugene Yabukovich, Simran Kang, Zoe Maglaris, Nicole Zlotnikova, Xavier Bravo, Isidro Anda, Abraham Barrantes, Jose Blancas, Marshall Dyson, David Vergel, Jonathon Jaji, Eriv Bobrov, Vanessa Vivas and Nathan Prebish. Bronze medals were won by Tyler Neuman, Andrew Splett, Justin Acevedo, Angel Rivera and Jameson Kring.

Jacob Jordan won the Intel Excellence in Computer Science with a cash prize of $200.

"Prior to the fair, the nanotechnology students had never performed authentic research and varied in their academic capabilities," said Lisa del Muro, a Wheeling High School teacher and one of the IJAS coaches. "I am awed by their growth as students and the development of their capabilities throughout this process."