Community Invited To LVJUSD’s First Online Science Odyssey

Press release from the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District:

April 7, 2021

With more than 140 projects uploaded to Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District’s (LVJUSD) online Science Odyssey, students proved this hypothesis: the challenges of the pandemic would not stand in the way of students’ showcasing their love of science!

Instead of traditional tri-fold presentation boards, this year, students submitted science, engineering, computer science, and math/data analysis projects to the online science fair platform, zFairs. This platform allowed for the inclusion of video presentations as well as written and pictorial content, and was also used by Alameda County for its science fair which provided a cohesive process for students also submitting projects to the Alameda County Science & Engineering Fair.

“It made my day to find out there would still be a Science Odyssey this year. The coordinators made the process of registering and submitting projects easy and added features that mimicked what would happen in a traditional fair to give us some semblance of normalcy,” shared Shrish Premkrishna, East Avenue Middle School 8th grader and Best in Show award recipient for his project, Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Grade Students’ Physical Paper Assessments.

Participating in Science Odyssey provides students with skill-building opportunities that reach beyond the fields of science and engineering. “Students are able to share their experimental results with local science experts and engage in scientific conversations that contribute to their social development and increase their motivation for being a future scientist or engineer. And while not everyone will become a scientist or engineer, all students benefit from the critical thinking skills developed by conducting science projects and following the scientific method,” expressed Roya Hosseini, Science Odyssey event coordinator and Junction Avenue K-8 science teacher.

Now in its 21st year, the District’s annual Science Odyssey continued its long-standing tradition of being a community celebration of science and engineering, involving not only students from grades 1-12, but also teachers and members of Livermore’s TOPS Science program as project judges, and sponsorships from local agencies including the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Sandia National Laboratories, the City of Livermore Water Resources Division, Zone 7 Water Agency, Quest Science Center, and Form Factor. These partners, along with Superintendent Kelly Bowers and Rob Bowers, provided special project awards as well as the acknowledgements given to all participants.

“Like many other reimagined events we have done this year due to the pandemic, the online Science Odyssey represents our effort to maintain traditions and important educational experiences for our students no matter what obstacles are in the way. It was wonderful to see the students presenting their projects to the judges online as they have done traditionally in person,” stated Superintendent Kelly Bowers.

The online LVJUSD Science Odyssey Showcase is currently open to the public to view student projects and awards through April 30, 2021. For links to the Showcase on zFairs, please visit www.livermoreschools.org/scienceodyssey.

This press release was produced by the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District. The views expressed here are the author's own.