Humboldt County’s team of 26 middle school scientists earned recognition from the judges at the 57th annual California State Science Fair held in Los Angeles May 19-20. Competing with 953 participants from 359 schools in the state, the students brought home eight awards.

Third place went to Claire Appelmans, a seventh-grader at Jacoby Creek Charter School, for her project “Musical Mutts,” which was entered in the mammalian biology category. Curious about why her dog howled when she practiced her viola, Appelmans performed experiments to determine what part of the harmonic series prompted her dog to sing along. As a third-place-award winner, she received a medal and $75 cash award.

Fourth place, also in the mammalian biology category, went to Ashton Pomrehn. His entry, “Cross Hand-eye Dominance: How Does It Affect Free-Throw Shooting,” garnered a medal and a $50 award. Pomrehn is a student at Sunny Brae Middle School.

Fifth-place honorable mention awards were presented to Emily Scheigert of Blue Lake School for “Soil Saturation,” Cameron Wallace of Pacific Union School for “Coefficient of Restitution: A Comparison of Major League and Little League Baseballs” and Kiran Surygadevara of Jacoby Creek School for “Effects of pH on the Browning of Cut Apples.”

The Hefni Achievement in Science Award went to Jnani Weibel of McKinleyville Middle School for “DNA Extraction from Plant and Animal Cells.” Weibel’s experiments confirmed his premise that DNA would be easier to extract from plant cells than from animal cells. The Hefni award, which provides recipients with $500, represents excellence of California’s youths in science studies.

Grant Harmon of Jacoby Creek School received a first-place Junior Division, Health Physics Society Award. Harmon’s project, “Non-toxic Protection from Ionizing Radiation Produced by a Linear Accelerator,” earned him a cash award of $100.

This was the California State Science Fair’s 57th anniversary. Approximately $60,000 in cash prizes were presented by the fair, plus additional awards and scholarships funded by private organizations and corporations.