January 18, 2025 marked the First Annual Taconic Hills Invitational Symposium of High School Science Research. This prestigious event was coordinated by Symposium Director Linda Hopkins, where she called upon the assistance of her family, fellow teachers, and students for a seamless execution.
Thirty-six students from a total of 11 schools came together to present out their findings on three years’ worth of research and experiments amongst the fields of Behavior Sciences, Cellular Biology, Chemistry/ Environmental Sciences, Health/Behavior Sciences, Plant & Animal Sciences, and STEM Science. Session rooms were assigned for each field of study, where students presented in front of teachers, their peers, families, aspiring future participants, as well as the highly esteemed judges.
The level of knowledge and professionalism that these students had was commendable. The students discussed the background of their experiments, the problems, methods, and results, as well as the limitations of the research, and the future research that would take place. If that wasn’t impressive enough, each participant was met with some pretty tough questions from the judges, things that only an expert in that field would know the answer to.
As each session room completed with all of their participants, the students met for lunch while the judges stayed back and deliberated on their findings to come up with awards for each category. During this time the participants and aspiring participants networked with others in their field of study and recorded their observations. Once the que was given that the decisions were made, which were incredibly tough, students were led to the Performing Art Center.
Three awards were given for each session room; the Outstanding Research Award, the Outstanding Presentation Award, and the Judges’ Choice Award. On stage, Linda Hopkins announced the names of the winners, and Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum Sandra Gardner presented each winner with a commemorative keychain. One of Taconic Hills’ very own, Darwin Cardona, won an award for his research on The Connection Between Levels of Anxiety/Stress and Music Usage in College Students.
The First Annual Taconic Hills Invitational Symposium of High School Science Research proved to be a great success with many smiling faces. With the amount of intellect and dedication that was witnessed here, the future looks very bright!
Pictured: Darwin Cardona & Mrs. Linda Hopkins