Biology Club wins “Judges’ Special Award”!

We’re the Biology Club! We participated in the finals of the 15th High School Student Bio Summit in Tsuruoka (sponsored by Keio University’s Institute for Advanced Life Sciences, Tsuruoka City), held in Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture from Wednesday, August 27th to Friday, August 29th.

The three research projects competing in the finals passed a preliminary screening process (held via Zoom on August 6th) out of 98 applicants (95 schools, 140 participants) and advanced to the finals. The finals were held as a poster session (face-to-face with judges), and rigorous judging took place (five sessions, four minutes for presentations and four minutes for questions and answers; the judges were all 20 PhD candidates). The finals consisted of two categories: the Results Presentation Category* (40 submissions, 59 participants from 40 schools) and the Plan Presentation Category* (15 submissions, 22 participants from 15 schools).

The Biology Club presented “Discovery of Novel Butyric Acid Bacteria for the Development of Butyric Acid Bacteria Supplements (3rd Year Students)” and “Effect of Oral Intake of Cocoa Powder on Sunburn Prevention in Hairless Mice (3rd Year Students)” in the Results Presentation section, and “Improvement of Mouse Memory Function Using the Barnes Maze (1st Year Students)” in the Plan Presentation section. Two of these presentations, “Improvement of Mouse Memory Function Using the Barnes Maze” and “Eliminating Swimming Pool Algae (Cyanobacteria) with Cyanophages (1st Year Students),” which were eliminated in the preliminary round, were awarded the Special Jury Prize.

Our school is a regular high school, and research is conducted as a club activity. However, we believe that winning the preliminary round in this competition, which is contested against strong schools with science and math departments (problem research) such as SSH, and winning two awards in the finals (after coming back from preliminary losses) are remarkable achievements.

Thank you for your support.

_{*: Within the allotted 10 minutes, participants were given 4 minutes to present to the judges (strict judging), followed by 4 minutes for questions and answers (there were 30 judges (all doctors). Each presentation was evaluated by 3 judges on a relative scale of 5 points). The results of the finals were announced on Friday the 8th (Results presentation category: 40 finalists out of 66 preliminary entries; Plan presentation category: 15 finalists out of 32 preliminary entries. Participating schools in the preliminary round: 59 schools nationwide, 140 participants).}