McLean Student Wins Team Award At National Science Fair Competition

MCLEAN, VA — A middle school student from BASIS Independent McLean was part of a team that took home the top award at a national science fair competition in Washington, D.C.

The student, Colin Beckner, competed as a finalist in the Society for Science Thermo Fisher Junior Innovators Challenge from Oct. 28 to Nov. 1. Colin was a member of the Silver Team, which was awarded the Team Award at a Kennedy Center Awards Ceremony on Nov. 1.

Thermo Fisher JIC is a national middle school science fair competition that the Society for Science runs in tandem with its Regeneron ISEF competition for high schoolers. The Top 30 JIC finalists were selected from about 60,000 middle school science fair projects nationwide.

Colin advanced to the national science fair competition with his 8th grade science fair project, which he completed last spring. For his project, Colin designed and 3D-printed five different airplane wingtip models, and then measured each wingtip's ability to counteract drag in a wind tunnel that he built himself.

Colin aimed to show that more efficient airplane designs could reduce fuel consumption, and therefore reduce the environmental impact of air travel.

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The Top 30 Finalists represented students from across the country. Colin was the only student to advance to the finals from the Washington, D.C., area, and one of only two students to advance from Virginia.

BASIS Independent McLean, located at 8000 Jones Branch Drive in McLean, was recently named the best private high school and the best college prep private high school in Virginia by Niche, a data analysis company. BASIS Independent McLean and its sister schools across the country are owned by Spring Education Group, a California company that oversees a network of about 220 schools.

The JIC Finals took place over a four-day period in D.C. On Oct. 29, the students presented their science fair projects to a panel of judges. Following that, the students were divided into six teams of five students, where they competed in science and engineering challenges over the next two days. The challenges took place Oct. 30-31.

On Nov. 1, the finalists were invited to the White House, and later to Capitol Hill. Later that night, the finalists were honored at an awards ceremony at the Kennedy Center.

In addition to Colin, the winning Silver Team members were Adyant Bhavsar, Shanya Gill, Akshadha Mehta and Venice Parnell. Along with an award, Colin and the other members of his winning team received a $200 science supply company gift card to support their interests in STEM.

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