Two Oakville schools have been named the top winners at the 2024 Bay Area Science and Engineering Fair (BASEF) that took place last week in Hamilton.
The annual BASEF science fair is among the largest in Canada and the local qualifying science fair for grade 7-12 Halton students to advance in competition for bringing their projects to either the Canada-Wide Science Fair (CWSF) or International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in May.
For 2024, two Oakville schools were named BASEF's top schools at this year's fair during the closing awards night that took place yesterday, March 26.
Oakville's W. H. Morden Public School was named the Best Elementary School at this year's fair, while Best Secondary School went to White Oaks Secondary School.
"It was an incredible year for BASEF, including some of the best projects we've ever seen," said special awards judge and awards presenter Cathy Hayman. "Oakville had great results this year - it's rare two public schools in the same board win both the best elementary and secondary school awards."
Four students from Oakville will advance to next-round fairs this year: two for CWSF and two at ISEF.
Maya LeBlanc, a senior student from Oakville's Abbey Park High School, won the night's Best in Fair top prize for her health sciences project "Analysis of CD16+, CD16- and CD4+ T Cells to Identify Novel Gene Signatures and Diagnostics for SLE."
Second place overall also went to an Oakville student: Oakville Trafalgar high school student Anthony Efthimiadis with his computer science project "Instant Skin Cancer Diagnosis: AI Hybrid Neural Networks with Precise Evolution Tracking."
In total, this year's fair saw 258 attendees from Halton region, Hamilton, and Brantford.
Over $270,000 in cash, scholarships, and trips awards were handed out for the winners at last night's awards ceremony, including the simultaneous judging of both the fair's merit awards and special awards.
Five projects from the fair go directly to ISEF that will be held this year in Los Angeles, California. Judges also select 17 students to go onto the Canada-wide science fair being held this year in Ottawa.
Best of all, the students do not pay to enter BASEF, and projects selected for advancement to CWSF or ISEF win an all-expenses paid trip to compete. This year, Leblanc and Efthimiadis will both travel to Los Angeles to represent Oakville at ISEF 2024.
CWSF projects can be from any grade, but students must be in grades 9-12 to qualify for ISEF.
For merit awards, 150 volunteer judges score the projects based on a rubric, with each project being scored by a variety of judges from multiple scientific backgrounds. Those scores determine who the fair's highest ranked projects will be.
Simultaneously, donors come in having sponsored special awards with money and/or scholarships for something they care about specifically, judging the projects that fit their field of interest.
After all of that has been calculated, judges look at the merit marks and determine the first, second, and third best in the fair. Judges also look at how many schools have entered, and they award a best overall high school and a best overall based on average scores.
Congratulations to all of the Oakville winners!
Ben Brown contributed photographs and additional reporting to this story.