At the recent state science fair, Mancos middle and high school students received awards for their science fair projects, the kind of accomplishments that are becoming the norm for Brady Archer’s students learning through a project-based model.

Archer, who started teaching in the RE-6 School District in 2000, is a science teacher and the science fair coordinator.

At the state science fair, Archer was awarded the Colorado Association of Science Teacher’s award and the Doug Steward Memorial award for his accomplishments.

Archer spoke the local science fair in Mancos, which is used to help teach students how to compete at higher level.

“We’ve just built the program over the years from something that was kind of a quick event during the day when I first started into something where we bring in around 10 judges all day at the end of January,” Archer said.

Students who participate in the science fair have their projects analyzed by a panel of judges and receive feedback before learning if they get to move on to the next round.

“That helps them get a little more prepared for the regional competition in Durango later on in February,” Archer said.

Archer said he believes adding local judging to Mancos’ science fair has helped students grow and become more competitive at a higher level.

“I think that the local judging gives a little better idea of what needs to go into these projects,” Archer said. “It’s helping students make their projects a little more in depth and helps make the interview process a little better for them.”

This year, seven middle school student and one high school student competed at the state level.

Three students won grand awards.

The first, which was created by Colter Dennison, was a study into toxic tributaries.

“He did water testing at different areas along the Mancos River and was looking at how different pollutants and metals and things like that in the water were affecting the land over different areas,” Archer said.

Dennison also won honorable mention for environmental sciences.

Vaughn Bankston studied different kinds of bridges.

“He worked with his dad, who understood drafting software, and he was able to build these bridges and tested them, and knew a lot of averages,” Archer said. “He ended up getting second in engineering.”

The last grand award was Cuinn Archer, who built an automatic plant waterer that he designed and made with a 3D printed.

“He had to do all the programming for the 3D printing, all the parts and the wiring for it,” Archer said. “He got first in engineering and he was also third overall for the junior category.”

Archer said there were about 140 junior contestants.

Special awards included the Colorado Environmental Health Association award, to Tymbri Priestley; STEMgirls LLC award, to Layla Mitchell; Society of Manufacturing Engineers award, to Cuinn Archer; Little Shop of Physics award, to Teagan Archer; State of Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety award, to Dennison; Trout Unlimited award, to Dennison; U.S. Navy and Marine award, to Cuinn Archer; and CO2/Greenhouse Gas Reduction award, to Quorra Benally.

Junior division grand awards included Earth and Environmental Sciences award honorable mention, Dennison; Engineering second place, to Bankston; Engineering first place, to Cuinn Archer; and Best CSEF Project award, third place, to Benally.

Archer said he hopes students who participate in science fair with the district take what they’re learning in science class, such as the scientific method, and apply it in life.

“I want them to understand why they’re useful in real world situations,” Archer said.

He added that the interview part of science fair competitions prepare students to talk to adults and explain their findings in a professional and concise way.

“This extra side of the interview process is having them get up in front of judges and explain something that they did and be able to explain it well and be professional about the way that they’re talking to judges,” Archer said. “We know there are times when you have to explain things to people, making sure you are dressing professionally and being comfortable presenting to judges and presenting to people.”

Archer hopes that seeing the Mancos students’ success will help get rid of the “bad rap” science fairs can have.

“I see memes on social media all the time,” Archer said. “I try to get kids to understand that this is their project, they have this opportunity to learn something that they want to learn more about. It really is incredible what ends up happening.”

Students’ official results can be viewed at the CSEF website https://csef.natsci.colostate.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Press-Release-2024.pdf.