Lake Ridge Academy Held the Middle School Science and Engineering Symposium

Lake Ridge Academy hosted our annual Middle School “Science and Engineering Symposium” on Friday, January 21st. Families and judges visited both Bettcher Convocation Center and Kemper Science Building to judge all 55 participating projects.

The event featured our 7th and 8th grade Middle School students completing and presenting their research projects. These projects had been conducted over the course of the semester and was chosen by the student. These projects needed to be measurable and have presentable data and analysis to either support or disprove their hypothesis. The Middle School Participants would explain their project to other visiting grade levels and families, as well as answering questions from our judges made up of Lake Ridge faculty and staff.

This research project is built directly into the Lake Ridge Academy curriculum, and is partially overseen by the organizer of the Symposium, Teacher Rob Robertson. When asked what makes students excited to compete in the Science and Engineering Symposium, he said "This is an opportunity to focus on what they (students) are interested in or that they like to do already... To use this to learn how scientists and engineers do their jobs."

At the end of the symposium, 20 of our participants were deemed to have exceeded the level of mastery by producing superior projects by our judges. 5 of our 20 students were also awarded special awards, such as “Most Beneficial to Society” and “Coolest Graph”. These 20 students are now eligible to compete in further science fairs that can include other participants from across Northeast Ohio.