The first-place winners of this year's Long Island Science &...

The first-place winners of this year's Long Island Science & Engineering Fair at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury.  Credit: Maria Zeitlin

Twenty-six Long Island students were first-place winners in this year's Long Island Science & Engineering Fair.

The winners took the top spots out of 419 projects in 16 categories ranging from animal sciences to translational medical science over the course of two rounds at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury. At least 25% of projects in each category advanced to the second round on March 12.

The first-place winners qualified for the Regeneron International Science & Engineering Fair, where they would have competed for nearly $5 million in prizes. That event, which was slated for May 10-15 in Anaheim, California, has been canceled because of he coronavirus outbreak.

This year's first-place winners and their high schools were: Ruchitha Channapatna, Suchitha Channapatna and Maya Lillian Maciel-Seidman, Bethpage; Biproprosad Das and Melissa Oz, Connetquot; Anna Elizabeth Suske, Eastport-South Manor; Rithika Narayan, Elwood; Ian Carlson Bailey, Garden City; Megan Gole and Tong Ye, Half Hollow Hills East; Poojan Pandya, Half Hollow Hills West; Sejal Gupta, Hicksville; Emily Gan, Suchir Misra, Vyom Shah and Davesh Reddy Valagolam, Jericho; Katherine June St. George, John F. Kennedy; Samantha Chen, Emma Wang and Ella Rose Wesson, Manhasset; Jacqueline Rose Albert and Hailey Edelman, Syosset; Nabiha Subzwari, Valley Stream South; Abishek Ravindran, W. Tresper Clarke; and William Hong Sun and Leo Takemaru, Ward Melville.

OAKDALE

HVAC training units

Eastern Suffolk BOCES' Edward J. Milliken Technical Center has acquired three new training units — a residential air-conditioning trainer, a basic refrigeration trainer, and a tabletop air-conditioning and refrigeration trainer — for use in its heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) class.

In Smithtown, fourth-graders at Dogwood Elementary School — like Kevin Ronan...

In Smithtown, fourth-graders at Dogwood Elementary School — like Kevin Ronan — shared what they have been doing at home during the coronavirus outbreak as part of an assignment through Google Classroom.  Credit: Smithtown Central School District

The units, which were acquired through a grant and created by iConnect Training, feature control panels that allow teachers to program flaws into the system that can then be troubleshot by the students.

"Before we had technology like this, we’d have to manually change a piece of equipment to train the students," said the center's HVAC teacher Nick DeBlanco.

SAYVILLE/HUNTINGTON STATION

Future City winners

Jeremy Donovan, left, and Stan Winston, STEM faculty members at The...

Jeremy Donovan, left, and Stan Winston, STEM faculty members at The Stony Brook School, wear laser-cut face shields that were designed by students and assembled in the school's STEM lab to assist area hospitals facing shortages of personal protective equipment during the coronavirus outbreak. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.  Credit: The Stony Brook School

Teams from Sayville and Henry L. Stimson middle schools placed third and fifth, respectively, in the New York City Regional of this year’s Future City Competition, a program of DiscoverE, formerly known as the National Engineers Week Foundation.

The competition challenged students to create a virtual city using SimCity software, build a scale model from recycled materials, and write a 1,500-word essay, among other things. This year's theme asked students to identify an urban water system threat and develop a futuristic solution to ensure a reliable supply of clean drinking water. 

Sayville and Henry L. Stimson's teams also won special awards for Best Futuristic Design and Most Energy Efficient City, respectively.

ISLANDWIDE

Competition canceled

In response to the coronavirus outbreak, Southampton Elementary School kicked...

In response to the coronavirus outbreak, Southampton Elementary School kicked off a bedtime stories initiative last month in which videos featuring teachers and students reading a variety of children's books are posted to the district's Facebook page. Pictured here, Assistant Principal Jeremy Garritano reads from his home.  Credit: Southampton School District

The New York State History competition, which was slated for April 27 in upstate Cooperstown, has been canceled because of the coronavirus outbreak. The pandemic also canceled last month's Long Island History Day competition at Hofstra University.

"The Executive Board painstakingly deliberated to try to keep this year's contest intact and prepared a well-designed virtual contest following the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in New York," Long Island History Day's academic coordinator John Staudt said in a statement. "Due to the escalating emergency, new state-imposed social distancing protocols, islandwide school closures, and the cancellation of state-level competitions, all of which have compromised our ability to run a fair contest, there were no viable alternatives but to cancel the 2020 regional contest."

The competition challenges participants to research historical topics of their choice in one of five categories: documentary, exhibit, paper, performance or website.

— MICHAEL R. EBERT
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