02102

21 May 2002

SINGAPORE STUDENTS CLINCH AWARDS AT PRESTIGIOUS SCIENCE FAIR
IN THE USA FOR THE FIRST TIME

1.        Tan Chun Ghee of Raffles Junior College and Cai Shan, of Hwa Chong Junior College, each won a Grand Award (3^rd Place category award)¹ at the highly competitive Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) 2002 held in Louisville, Kentucky, USA from 12 - 18 May 2002² .

2.        The Intel ISEF³ is the world's only science project competition for students in the ninth through twelfth grades (Sec 3 to JC2) and it attracted 1034 projects this year. Unlike other content-based competitions, the Intel ISEF encourages creativity and hands-on research and investigation in 14 scientific categories. It is widely regarded as the "Olympics, World Series and World Cup of science competitions". To win an award, students must demonstrate qualities of a good researcher, i.e. creativity, scientific thinking and processes, investigative and laboratory skills, thoroughness of investigation and clarity of report and presentation.

3.        Both our participants proved that they were up to the mark. One of the judges, who assessed Cai Shan's project on the effects of a bacteria strain on human bladder cancer cells, said that Cai Shan's project was one of the best in the Medicine and Health Science category. Said A/P Lee Yuan Kun: "[Cai Shan] impressed me as a confident and intelligent student. She was able to follow up her research findings ... develop clearer experiments to verify her hypothesis. Her curiosity and analytical mind will carry her a long way in a scientific research career."

4.        Chun Ghee from Raffles Junior College received two special awards in addition to the 3^rd place category Grand award for his novel method to electrochemically etch platinum-iridium tips used for scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM). This has the potential to enable STM to produce better image quality. He also received a Honourable Mention by the American Chemical Society, and a 2^nd Prize of US$500 US Saving Bond by the Ashtavadhani Vidwan Ambati Subbaraya Chetty (AVASC) Foundation⁴.

5.        ISEF is a highly competitive fair where student participants earn the right to compete by first winning top prizes at a local or national science fair. This year, students from 38 countries participated in the event. Tan Chun Ghee and Cai Shan were selected from over 200 secondary and junior college students who participated in the Singapore Science and Engineering Fair (SSEF), a local fair affiliated to ISEF, held earlier in March this year. SSEF is a joint effort of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), the Singapore Science Centre (SSC) and the Ministry of Education and supported by the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA). It is part of the collaborative efforts of the Ministry of Education and its partners to nurture a more stimulating environment for the learning of science in schools.

6.        In addition to the above agencies, lecturers and researchers from the universities, polytechnics and local research institutes are also involved in this effort through their roles as mentors for student projects. For example, Cai Shan's mentor is Associate Professor Lee Yuan Kun from the Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine at the National University of Singapore.

7.        This is Singapore's second year of participation in the Intel ISEF, which is into its 53^rd year.

¹ Tan Chun Ghee won a Third Award of US$1,000 in the Chemistry Category presented by Intel Foundation, and Cai Shan won a Third Award of US$1,000 in Medicine and Health presented by Merck Research Laboratories.

² Information on the Grand Prize Awards for ISEF can be found at http://www.sciserv.org/isef/grnd2002.asp

³ Information on ISEF is at http://www.sciserv.org/isef/abtisef.asp