Students from The Frazer School took top places at science competitions at the end of February and will be moving on to the national competitions slated for this spring.
On Feb. 22, the middle science bowl team from The Frazer School won their 2025 National Science Bowl (NSB) regional competition. Along with the winners of the other 45 regions from across the country for middle schoolers, the Gainesville group will advance to the NSB National Finals taking place from April 24-28 in Washington, D.C.
At the national level, students compete in several days of science activities, sightseeing and competitions. Schools placing in the top 16 at nationals will win $1,000 for their math and science departments, while the top two middle and high school teams will win $5,000.
“Now in its 35th year, the National Science Bowl brings together the most exceptional young minds from across America with science, technology, and math,” said Harriet Kung, acting director of the DOE Office of Science, in a press release. “I am honored to congratulate The Frazier School team as they advance to the National Finals. Continue to believe in yourselves and your knowledge as you compete for the title of champion.”
Around 344,000 students have participated in the NSB competition since the U.S. Department of Energy founded it in 1991, with around 10,000 students each year. Teams of four students and one alternate are led by a teacher from their school as the competitions tests them on a range of science disciplines, including biology, chemistry, Earth science, physics, energy and math.
The region won by The Frazer School group consists of 63 of the 67 counties in Florida. The Frazer School teachers Marc Moody and Kim Baxter coach the team.
“These five kids have all worked very hard to produce this win,” said Marc Moody, who coaches The Frazer School team alongside Kim Baxter, in a press release. “They have studied material years beyond most of their age group, and the results showed it. Even the best teams they played seemed to feel that the Frazer team’s speed and knowledge were insurmountable.”
The Frazer School also had six students place in the Alachua Regional Science and Engineering Fair last month. The following students placed in these categories and will move on to the 70th annual State Science and Engineering Fair of Florida this spring:
- James Jiang, 1st Place Chemistry: How to Transform Detrimental Diffusion into Novel Sensors and Smart Coatings
- Luke Xue, 2nd Place Behavioral & Social Sciences: Are Doctors Demographic Neutral? A Large Language Model Based Evaluation of Clinical Notes
- Jaganesh Ramkrishnan, 1st Place Engineering: A Novel CFD Tested Solution to The Complex Issue of Formula 1 Porpoising, and its Implications on Ground Effect Vehicles
- Eric Li, 2nd Place Engineering: Tactile Sensing to Improve Autonomous Perception
- Maggie Gao, 1st Place Environmental Engineering: Chitosan Beads for Removing Contaminants from Water
- Govardhan Kandru, 1st Place Mathematics and Computational Sciences: Novel Machine Learning-Driven Methodology for Gene Expression-Based Virtual Screening to Identify Efficacy of Potential Compounds to Target Neuroinflammation and Synaptic Dysfunction in Alzheimer’s Disease, with Broader Applications to Neurodegenerative Disorders
