Ten participants from Portola High competed against students from other Irvine Unified School District elementary, middle and high schools at the 38th Annual Science Fair on Feb. 6 at Northwood High, with several participants receiving awards for their hard work and efforts.

Projects demonstrated creativity and innovation within the STEM field and were selectively awarded blue, red or white ribbons in Life Science and Physical Science, representing first, second and third place respectively.

In Life Science, freshman Yasmin Fukushima and juniors Harpreet Saluja and Joseph Kim won the white ribbon. In Physical Science, sophomores Junho Park and Nathan Oh won the blue ribbon, qualifying for regionals, freshman Sabreen Alam and sophomore Mahum Khan won the red ribbon and juniors Ella Quan and Tina Wang won the white ribbon.

“For my project, I was testing the effectiveness of medical hand washing techniques because I wanted to find a way to reduce the infections in hospital settings,” Yasmin Fukushima said. “I’m interested in going into the medical field and being a doctor, and I think this is a good way to make a little contribution.”

Students devoted three months to designing, experimenting and creating their tri-fold displays, physical projects and laboratory notebooks. Each project revolved around a specific issue relevant to students’ passions, encouraging problem solving and growth in the minds of young innovators.

Junho Park created a testing platform that displayed numerous charging cables from different brands in an attempt to test durability while acknowledging the different materials used, such as PVC.

“One of the biggest challenges was obviously my testing platform,” Park said. “I think most of the time I put in was to design and build the testing platform. I learned that it takes a lot of time to actually get results from experiments and a lot of effort.”

The Science Fair serves as an annual convention for students from sixth grade to twelfth grade to cultivate their interests and dedication for science and engineering.