Google Science Fair Selects Top 15 for Finals In Mountain View

On June 6 Google announced the top 15 contestants in the Google Science Fair 2012 as participants waited anxiously in the Google+ Hangout. The finalists include children from around the world who took part in the online competition set up by the popular Search Engine. The 15 finalists will make their way to Google’s head quarters in Mountain View, California to take part in the final show down.

The Google Science Fair was run online and the competition dared the kids to ask questions and find answers. Participants could take part as either individuals or as teams of up to three. The entrants were grouped into three age categories from 13-14, 15-16, and 17-18. Initially students had to either create presentation or film that outlined their hypothesis clearly, showed of their experiment and conveyed their results. The project also required the students to have eight sections including information about themselves, the Question they wanted to answer, their hypothesis, research, experiments, data, observations and finally the student’s conclusion.

This year students from the United States had the lion’s shares of finalists with seven spots. Three of the final students represented India one finalist each was from Swaziland, Ukraine, Spain, Malta, and Canada. Interestingly, this year the male students out did the young female scholars unlike last year where the girls won top spot in each age category.

Winners of the grand prize will be given a 50,000 dollar scholarship from Google, a trip to the Galapagos Islands, a chance to tour Lego, CERN or Google and several other life changing experiences. The judges for the finals will be prominent scientists and a winner from last year’s competition. The panel will be looking at different types of questions that students have tried to answer in order to better the world. The young minds have tried to tackle issues relating to vertical farming, water-efficient toilets and 3D imaging.