Congratulations Are in Order for our Student Volunteers

By Beth Mather

Two of our student volunteers at the Black Mountain Restoration site took home first place prizes, not only from the Greater San Diego City Science Fair (GSDSEF), but also at additional competitions at the state and international levels. Both of their projects had a connection with our restoration work in the Black Mountain Open Space.

Anna Luo

Anna, a student at Canyon Crest and a leader of the Student Leadership Club, has been volunteering at the restoration site for about 2 years. Based on observations about the site and what she learned during her volunteering work, she proposed and conducted a study on the allopathic (growth and reproduction inhibition) effects of the non-native artichoke thistle on the reproduction of native plants. Her poster, which was entitled “Allopathic Effects of Cyanara cardunculus on Native Coastal Sage Shrub Species,” was presented at the GSDSEF in March. For her work, she received a 1st Place Category Award along with two Professional Society Awards, one from Regeneron and one from the Torrey Pines Docent Society. This qualified her to compete in the California Science and Engineering Fair. There, she placed 1st in her category and was to be selected as one of two students to advance to the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) which she states, “was a great honor and truly shocking!” The ISEF which took place in Columbus, Ohio during the second week of May, was an unforgettable experience for Anna. She got to meet many amazing students from all over the world, learned about a huge range of research topics, and presented her own project. One of the biggest surprises of the week was receiving a Special Award from Arizona State University, the New American University ISEF Scholarship, valued at $32,000! Way to go Anna!

Austin Zhang

Austin is a leader of the Youth Care Club at Del Norte High School and has also been a hard-working, long-time volunteer at the restoration project. He made use of his experience at the site and combined it with his knowledge of drones to develop his poster entitled “Smart Park Management: A Drone-Based AI Solution for Vegetative Health Monitoring and Wildfire Risk Management.” He too received a 1st Prize at the GSDSEF as well as four professional society awards at GSDSEF. For one of them, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) award, he had the honor of receiving a trophy from San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria. Austin also advanced to the California State Fair, where he also won 1st Place in the Environmental Engineering category. In this competition there is only one 1st, one 2nd, one 3rd, and a few honorable mentions. In June, he was honored to receive a Gold Medal at the Genius Olympiad, an international competition featuring projects from 69 countries. Only about 29% of submitted projects are selected as finalists and invited to attend the competition in Rochester, NY. Among those, only the top ~5% receive gold medals. Not a bad showing!

Congratulations to both of you on your successes.