Marshall County Science Fair Winners Moving On to Regional Science Fair

MOUNDSVILLE - Emily McBee's mouth dropped open when hearing her name called as the overall winner of the Marshall County Science Fair on Thursday.

With her look of surprise it was plain to see that the Moundsville Middle School eighth grader was not expecting the honor.

McBee had already won first prize in the category of Material Science with her experiment regarding materials and their insulating properties titled "Thermal vs. Sound."

"It was pretty exciting, but it was also scary," she said of winning. "I was not expecting to win."

McBee said she was both excited and scared about moving on to the next level of competition.

"I'm not sure how I'm going to do," she added.

McBee and the other students delved into a variety of topics to impress the judges, taking home medals and first-place winners securing spots to compete during the future regional science fair.

The event took place at the school district's field house beside the football stadium.

In addition to McBee, winners during the event included:

Animal Science: first place Hallie Clark, second place Alexander Schrumpf;

Behavioral and Social Science: first place Avery Taylor, second place Allyson Emery;

Chemistry: first place Parker Haught and Sophie Shia, second place Christian Dalton;

Earth and Environmental Science: first place Kensie Grigsby, second place Coltin Myers;

Energy: first place Caleigh Cochran;

Engineering: first place Dane Kociban, second place Carson Anderson;

Material Science: first place McBee, second place Blaney Brown;

Math and Data: first place Carter Wells;

Medical Science: first place Madison Roberts, second place Gavin Pickett;

Physics and Astronomy: first place Austin Miller and Sterling Reed, second place Deacon Downes;

Plant Science: first place Lauren McGraw, second place Navaeh Cox; and

Technology: first place Knox Wilson, second place Allie Twigg.

Moundsville Middle School science teacher Jaime Pettit, who is also coordinator of the science fair, said the fair doubled in size with the number of students participating compared to last year. Sixty students participated this year from three middle schools: Cameron, Moundsville and Sherrard.

"We really increased the number so that's really good," she said. "Some schools have to compete and others are voluntary."

Pettit said the quality of the projects made it tough for the judges.

"We're running a little late today because the judges were having a really hard time placing students because some of their projects are really good," she said.

Among the top two in each category, the first place winners will go on to compete at the regional science fair at West Liberty University in February.

"If they place at the regional fair they can move on to the state fair," she said, adding it is in March. "It's really exciting for the science fair that they get to pick a topic that they're interested in," she said. "These topics weren't assigned by their teachers. This is something they chose that they wanted to research and experiment with."

Pettit said before reaching the county fair level the students had to compete against their fellow pupils at their respective schools.