Students from 16 Catholic schools participated in the 56th Annual Los Angeles County Science Fair at the California State Science Fair in April.

Patrick Sullivan, 7th grader from St. Paul the Apostle, won first place in the Junior Division with his project titled "Do Facial Expressions Affect Intonation in Singing?"

Second place medals went to Junior Division Emma Clink (7th grade) of St. Mel School for her Animal Biology Project, "Inherited Fingerprint Patterns," and Alexis Nitti (12th grade) of Saint Monica for his Senior Division project in Physics, "2 + 2 = Less Than You Think."

Annemarie Kelleghan (8th grade) and Jozefa McKiernan (6th grade) of St. Anastasia School also placed second in their respective Junior Division categories with "Back to Ballona: A Two Year Analysis of Ballona Creek" in Earth/Space Sciences and "Eletrostatics" in Physics, respectively.

Chaminade Middle School 8th graders Michael Raynis and the team of Kurtis Abato-Earwood and Kannan Aravagiri also won second place medals for their Junior Division projects. Raynis won for "Extreme Frisbee: Launch Variables vs. Flying Disc Flight Tendencies" in the category of Physics/Aerodynamics while Abato-Earwood and Aravagiri scored with "Project Pine Car-Mass and Propeller variations on Vehicle Efficiency" in Earth/Physical Sciences.

Third place medals went to Erica Kepski (8th grade) of Our Lady of Grace School for "Which Antacid Will Neutralize Gastric Acid the Best?" in Applied Chemistry, and Jeremy Fuster, 7th grader from St. Cyril for "GSI: Bacteria --- A Gram Stain Investigation" in Microbiology.

Honorable Mention Awards went to Ann Duboise of St. Cyril, Martin Tugade and Matthew Pantell of St. Mel, Andrew Wieland of St. John Fisher, Mary Rizk of Holy Trinity, Henry Downs of Cathedral Chapel, Ashley Haynes of Good Shepherd, Nicholas Weis of St. Anastasia, Stephen Tran of St. Bede, Karen Lumbres and Norah Covarrubias of Ramona Convent, and Greg Kavokis and Brice Pinkowski of Chaminade Middle School.

The Los Angeles County Science Fair is the oldest and longest running regional Science Fair in the nation. First, second and third place winners continue on to the California State Science Fair at the California Science Center in May.