Clara Wood

Each group at ISEF’s state competition gathers around and props up their poster boards to be judged.

Running for over 50 years, the district competition for the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) occurred at Riverside High School on Feb. 21, with some West Linn students participating in the event. Students have been preparing since October to get their projects done, developed, and ready for the event so they could get the many opportunities offered from this event.

Danielle Schroeder, an ISEF coordinator, assists students in beginning their projects.

“We are an affiliate fair, and students pick a topic that they love. They work with myself and my counterpart, Tiffany Stevens, to investigate a question or some sort of problem related to that topic,” Schroeder said. “We help them execute the project, including materials and techniques, data analysis, and then they compete with that project at our district level science fair, usually in February or March.”

Schroeder has been working at the district competition for nine years, and now runs a class at West Linn and at Wilsonville High School for anyone interested in this event who needs extra time to work on their project.

“The science fair is an outlet for you to explore something that you genuinely love, that there might not be space at school to explore otherwise,” Schroeder said. “This event is for everyone, no matter how scientifically savvy.”

Students in ISEF can find an outlet for a variety of topics that they may not get the chance to explore while in school.

“Sometimes you still have something that you’re really excited about, and there just doesn’t seem to be a place where you can give all your time and energy to it, and ISEF can be that for students who are really into cooking and want to perfect the gluten free flour,” Schroeder said. “You can also do things like explore marketing and explore how YouTube creator success has been on the rise.”

Jonathan Beldman, junior, created a pain management device for blood draws this year. Beldman initially learned about ISEF when they came to his Biology class to talk about it.

“It was originally kind of like an incentive to not have to take the final because of what we had in our Biology class,” Beldman said. “But then I decided [that] it was great getting a chance to find a solution to a problem or research something I thought was interesting.”

The ISEF program offers grants to cover the cost of supplies for students, as well as connect students with experts to help them with their projects.

“I enjoy the fact that I’m able to find a problem that I want to solve, and then be able to have mentorship from different people and have the resources to be able to find a way to create a solution and just be able to research something that I’m interested in,” Beldman said.

Beldman has been working on his project since October, and he knew how to start his project since this is his third year doing ISEF. There were other returning ISEF participants such as  Annamika Konkola, senior, who has worked on a project for all four years of high school.

“This year I started [my project] at the beginning of the school year,” Konkola said. “In previous years, I started my projects in the summer, but this year was my fun year. I really loved [my experiment] because it was an experiment anyone could do at home.” 

For her experiment, Konkola surveyed ants in petri dishes and viewed them as a model for future pandemics. Konkola was inspired during the COVID-19 pandemic when she would watch the ants outside her window. 

“I would just watch ants outside of my window when I was really bored and there was online school,” said Konkola “So it was kind of that memory that bridged pandemics and ants in a really unexpected way that just made me want to go investigate it further, and it ended up becoming the idea that I was really excited about.”

Another participant of ISEF was Neve Del Carlo, sophomore, who collaborated with Katie Crim, sophomore. This was Crim’s first time doing ISEF and Del Carlo’s second.

“It was really fun having a partner, and especially one who was so smart and who was so capable, and we worked well together,” Del Carlo said. 

Their project focused on biodegradable packaging.

“It was the fact that a lot of plastic is single-use, and it’s discarded at a really fast rate,” Neve said. “We wanted to make sure that we had a sustainable solution to that would degrade quickly.”

They developed their biodegradable packaging from natural polymers in order to reduce the plastic output. They were able to find a project they didn’t have an opportunity for in school life, and got the mentorships and grants from ISEF to make it happen.

According to Schroder, the top 30% of fair participants qualify for the state ISEF competition.If they do well at state, they go to internationals, but at all levels there are plenty of opportunities such as money, scholarships, and internships. First in the procession is the judging stage..

“Essentially, everyone’s sitting down, waiting while the judges weave their way through the tables, and then one of them will stop and ask you to share about your project,” Beldman said. 

Judges go around the convention center to interview students about their projects, letting them explain their boards and demonstrate their projects to them. The judges then give feedback to the students on what they did well and what they’d like to see improved upon in the future

To get involved with ISEF, students can email Schroeder or sign up for the ISEF class.

“I’d recommend ISEF to really anyone,” Beldman said. “I think it’s a really good opportunity just to expand your field of knowledge, and it gives you some skills that maybe you haven’t had before, like public speaking, or [accepting] criticism.”