Four District 54 students are headed to the You Be the Chemist state competition after placing in the top four at the fifth annual regional competition held Feb. 16 at Schaumburg’s Prairie Center for the Arts.
Twenty-two junior high students from six District 54 schools, South School and St. Peter Lutheran School competed for the opportunity to advance to the state level competition on April 1 in Des Plaines.
After several rounds of very challenging competition, Akhila Rao, an eighth-grader at Addams, emerged as the Schaumburg Regional Champion. Akila is a repeat winner, having finished in fourth place at the 2010 Illinois State Competition.
Arun Arjunikani, a seventh-grader at Mead, finished second, and Danielle Grubb, an eighth-grader at Keller, finished third. These three students will compete for the crown of the state champion. Zohra Tabassum, an eighth-grade Keller student, placed fourth in this competition and will go to the state competition as an alternate.
This event was sponsored by UOP, a Honeywell Company, based in Des Plaines, Illinois and was organized with support of the Chemical Education Foundation (CFE). For more information, please contact the District 54 science director, Jim Vreeland at (847) 357-2049.
