Polk County Public Schools
A Lawton Chiles Middle student and two sisters attending the International Baccalaureate program at Bartow High were public school students winning Best of Show Awards at the Regional Science Fair. More than 400 students from 30 middle and high schools submitted projects for the fair which was held in Bartow and completed on February 21.
Summer Monroe, an eighth grader at Lakeland’s Lawton Chiles Middle, won Best of Show for her engineering project titled “Levee Failure – Scour Experiment.” Pranali and Prachiti Dalvi, juniors and sisters at Bartow IB, each won a Best of Show Award. Pranali won for a biochemistry project titled “Characterization of a Biophysics Simulation to Evaluate p53 Apoptosis.” Prachiti won for her medicine and health project titled “Determination of Amyloid-Beta levels through regulation of Ataxin-1 Pathway.”
Monroe and the Dalvi sisters qualified to compete with their science projects at the 54th Annual State Science and Engineering Fair to be held April 15 to 17 at the Lakeland Center. In addition, the Dalvi sisters will compete with their projects at the International Science Fair in Reno, Nevada from May 10 to 15.
Thirteen other Polk public school students also qualified to compete at the state science fair by virtue of winning either first or second place at the regional fair. State qualifiers from public schools are listed by school with the competition category in which they will compete at the state science fair.
Bartow International Baccalaureate: Bianca Mulaney (computer science), Jude Nawlo (mathematics), Alex Rakestraw (engineering).
Bartow Middle: Alana Snyder (engineering).
Fort Meade Senior: Cassandra Diamond (environmental sciences).
Haines City International Baccalaureate: Andrea Yancy (physics and astronomy).
Lake Region High (Eagle Lake): Lance Lebanoff (botany)
Lakeland Highlands Middle (Lakeland): Matthew Hewett (botany), Aubrey Presnell (physics and astronomy), Niray Vyas (medicine and health)
Mulberry Middle: Megan Carpenter (biochemistry).
Mulberry High: Harley Rossum (behavioral and social science).
Union Academy (Bartow): Amol Patadia (medicine and health).
