The regional science fair was held on February 15, 2019, and three Maize seniors decided that they were going to create a project and enter it into the fair. None of them expected to win, but due to their hard work and determination they won not only their category, but the whole division.

Seniors Nicholas Vasilescu, Cammie Davis and Emma Wituk have been friends since middle school and they have had many science classes together, but they said never really thought that they would end up doing science fairs together.

Emma Wituk participated in a few science fairs during her junior year and she wanted to continue, so she asked Vasilescu and Davis if they would like to join her the following year. They both agreed.

“I wanted to do as many things as I can for my last year of high school,” Vasilescu said “That’s why I did science fairs for the first time ever, and I am doing track even though I have never ran track before. I am trying to stay busy and have fun.” 

Davis decided to agree and do the science fair because she thought they had a chance to win their category and she wanted to try something new. The group started working on their project in the middle of January, and they worked for about a month before regionals. The group decided that the project they wanted to enter into the fair would be about the effects of smart phones on active recall. This is the ability to recall information in a testing environment.

They tested about eighty-six students at Maize. They did a correlation of each grade and gender to see if there was a difference between them. They had each student watch a four minute Ted Ed video and then answer a short quiz after. Some students had their smart phones with them and received texts through out the whole video, and some students didn’t have their phones with them at all. There was a thirty percent difference in the scores. The students with their phones scored an average of 30 percent lower score than the students without their phones.

There were about sixty groups in attendance at the regionals science fair.

Vasilescu, Wituk and Davis won with almost a perfect score, they were only half a point away from having a perfect score which is really tough to get.

Now the group is getting prepared for state on March 29. They plan to make a few adjustments to their poster, and to add a few more pictures of the testing environment. The group is excited for state and they are anxious to see what happens.

“We are excited and we are ready to take state.” Davis said.