A Howard Bishop Middle School student won a first-place award at the State Science and Engineering Fair of Florida, held recently in Lakeland, Florida, with several other Alachua County Public School students also earning recognition at the event for their research projects.
Eighth-grader Aradhya Kasala, who is enrolled in Bishop’s Academy of Technology and Advanced Studies, took top honors in the Junior Earth and Environmental Sciences category with her project ‘Development of a Low-Cost Coagulant Based Water Purification System; and Validation of Water Quality via a Novel Real-Time IoT Monitoring.’ In layman’s terms, the project addresses creating an affordable way to clean and constantly check water quality. Kasala’s project also took first place in the Alachua Regional Science and Engineering Fair in February.
At the state fair, Kasala won three additional special prizes, including the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovator’s Challlenge, the Florida Association for Water Quality Control and the Cantwell Award from the Sierra Club Florida.