Recipients of 2008-09 Applied Science Grants
SRP approved grant proposals from nine high schools to participate in the 2008-09 Applied Science Grants by SRP program. The Applied Science Program challenges high school student teams to design and plan a project that involves practical application of scientific principles. Projects must utilize applied science or technology to resolve a specific problem, question or issue.
As "seed money" for projects, SRP offers grants from $500 to $5,000 to high school teams.
SRP awarded grants to the following schools:*
- Arizona School for the Arts (Phoenix), $3,550: "Thinking Science" will be implemented through a series of interventions, engaging students in active thinking and communicating the fundamentals of science across the school year. This new paradigm for intellectual engagement will result in greater student interest and engagement.
- Arcadia High School (Scottsdale), $5,000: A week-long series of events focus on bioscience and STEM careers. Arcadia will celebrate National DNA day with students, teachers, parents and middle school students invited to the campus open house. Three hundred Arcadia students will host and inspire the 270 middle school students who will enroll next year.
- Buckeye Union High School (Buckeye), $4,899.26: Students will be engaged in hands-on experimental research in genetic material. From cloning through controlled mutation, SRP funds will enable Buckeye High School to purchase and use electrophoresis machines, centrifuges, advanced microscopes, micropipettes, and laminar flow hoods.
- Cesar Chavez High School (Phoenix), $5,000: Chavez students will apply mathematics, physics, technology and engineering principles in the design, construction, programming, testing, and competition with their own robots in the national FIRST Robotics competition.
- Fountain Hills High School (Fountain Hills), $5,000: Dr. McElligott's students are in the fourth year of a continuing investigation of practical research into alternative energy sources. His students have produced functional solar and hydrogen-driven fuel cells with SRP grants. The SRP grant will enable his students to purchase and integrate a one-kilowatt fuel cell into their existing photovoltaic system.
- Hamilton High School (Chandler), $5,000: Hamilton's Honors Independent Research Course routinely produces student exploratory science that has won national and international awards. Students in the program work with university research scientists on projects of significant sophistication. SRP's grant dollars enable Hamilton to provide excellent students with the tools they need for first-class investigations.
- Page High School (Page), $3,620: Page High's Engineering/Physics class will use SRP grant dollars to design and build four "battlebots" for the Arizona Battlebot IQ competition. Students apply math, science and technology in a unique blend of skills to complete the project.
- Phoenix Country Day School (Phoenix), $5,000: The "Green Team" at Phoenix Country Day wish to create a sustainability initiative, building on successful efforts in school-wide recyling and waste management. SRP funds will enable the "Green Team" to inaugurate a solar recharging system for the school's fleet of electric vehicles.
- Skyline Technical High School (Phoenix), $4,312.51: Students from the Gila River Indian Reservation will gather, benchmark and analyze meteorologic data from the reservation, developing an air, soil and water quality monitoring system in response to rapid urban encroachment on the reservation. Students will develop recommendations for tribal leaders.
- St. Johns High School (St. Johns), $5,000: Bell's students have produced some of the first and most successful battery-powered cars, hybrid vehicles and solar-powered boats. This year, they plan to use SRP's funds to design, build and test a wind-powered turbine at the school.
- Youngker High School (Buckeye), $4,225: Students will use SRP funds to purchase the equipment necessary to use varied microbial sources to power one and two-chambered microbial fuel cells. Students will record and track power outputs, using alternate paradigms to discover the most effective system.
*Note: Some applicants for Learning Grants by SRP for 2008-09 were reassigned to this grant program as more appropriate. Recipients will be notified to avoid confusion.