BATON ROUGE – Four girls from Baton Rouge middle schools swept the grand awards at the 2015 Louisiana STEM Expo at Kenilworth Science and Technology Charter School on Saturday, February 28, 2015 .
Jasmine Gray, a 6th-grade student from McKinley Middle Magnet School, was the 1st grand award winner with her demonstration, "Cornstarch Experiment." Monica Deras, 6th-grade student at Kenilworth, took the 2nd grand award for "Tornado Tube and Fountain Connection." Anusha Zaman, 8th-grade student from Glasgow Middle School, was the 3rd grand award winner with "Hookah vs. Cigarette Smoke," and Carley Whitty, a 6th-grade Kenilworth student, took the 4th grand award with "Wimhurst Machine."
Dozens of students participated in the expo, which was open to all middle-school students in Louisiana. Special speakers included U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, DOTD Secretary Sherri LeBas, LSU Boyd Professor Dr. Isiah Warner and local businessman Brian Rodriguez, president of Gatorworks.
A spokeswoman for one of the expo's partners, the U.S. Navy Recruiting District in New Orleans, said the STEM Expo is an important event to encourage students to get involved in STEM activities.
"The Department of the Navy is committed to identifying, attracting, and preparing our nation's students in the STEM fields with the goal of meeting the global workforce challenges of tomorrow," Dr. Yvonne Simmons, education program manager for the recruiting district, said. "We salute Kenilworth for being a leader in this field, and the Navy Recruiting District-New Orleans looks forward to supporting Kenilworth's future STEM events."
Kenilworth Science and Technology Charter School is a state-sanctioned charter school with an academic focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM. Formerly a part of the East Baton Rouge Parish school system, Kenilworth has demonstrated consistent academic growth since its conversion to a charter school in 2009.
