SEMINAR: The Greater Miami chapter of the AMS and the Regional Science and Engineering Fairs

["Neal.Dorst" <Neal.M.Dorst@noaa.gov>]

All:

I want to thank Erik Salna, Dr. Sim Aberson, and Howie Friedman for their recent efforts in judging the

Science Fairs sponsored by the school boards of Miami-Dade and Broward counties.  They selected two

winners at each of the fairs and conferred the Dr. Gordon E. Dunn Award on them on behalf of our chapter.

This Award was named for the former director of NHC who played such a vital role in our chapter's history

and in the development of the meteorological community in Miami.

Once again, our judges noticed a paucity of exhibits in the weather or climate category, although Sim

did mention an uptick in numbers primarily due to a website which allows students to "cookbook" experiments

without necessarily encouraging understanding among the students of meteorology or the scientific method.

Some exhibitors even complained that they had wanted to do a different science subject they were more interested

in, but were discouraged by their teachers and pushed to do a weather poster instead.

Be that as it may, we should recall that we have had such successes in the past as Zach Gruskin, who is

studying meteorology at the University of Wisconsin and Edumin Corrales who won an 2010 AMS Minority 

Scholarship to the University of Miami.  This gives us hope of finding the occasional gem among the zircons.

Below are the winners selected by Erik Salna ate the Miami-Dade South Florida Regional Science and

Engineering Fair.  We are waiting on releasing the names of the Broward county fair winners until after their

awards ceremony.  These results will also be posted to our chapter's website

South Florida Science and Engineering Fairs

AMS: Certificate of Outstanding Achievement - For ability and Creativity in an Atmospheric Science Exhibit

Abigail Ayers
10th Grade
North Miami Beach Sr. HS
Project Title:  Hurricane Spoilers Part II
Project examined roof retrofit for hurricane wind mitigation.

Daniel Chomat
11th Grade
Christopher Columbus HS
Project Title:  The Effect of Hurricane Force Winds on High Profile and Medium Profile Tiles
Project examined the different performance abilities of 2 different styles of roof tiles to hurricane wind.