On March 21, 2019 the AP Biology and AP Chemistry classes will be participating in the state science fair at The New Hampshire Technical Institute. In the science fair students must come up with a one of a kind idea and figure out how to make a solution to fix it. Mrs.Thomas and Mr. Hamel are the two teachers who are sponsoring students for the science fair. Participating in the science fair is a big part of the students’ grade and has a big effect on what they do in their future. Students participating in the science fair may win scholarship money, grants to continue research, and or possibly a trip to the national science fair later in the year.

Mr. Hamel says that it is his fifth year teaching AP here at Goffstown High School and he has done the science fair all five years, but Mrs. Thomas has had her students participate in the science fair for over ten years. Mrs. Thomas believes that her AP biology students are ahead of the past students while Mr. Hamel believes there was a “hesitancy to get started but now they are right on track”.  

All students must have a mentor for their project. Mrs. Thomas mentors quite a few of her students. Mr. Hamel will not mentor any of his students, so they must reach out to other teachers. Since both of the teachers have heard what all the students are doing in their projects, they believe there are definitely some stand out ideas. Mr. Hamel states, “there is an elegance and simplicity in design” and that “some of [the ideas] are quite innovative” while Mrs. Thomas says “I am curious to see how they will pull it off”.

Both teachers agree on the fact that there could be future millionaires in this group of students. Mr. Hamel states that “I am always surprised at the results and rankings from the judges that the students get but would also not be surprised if more than one in the group stand out”. When future millionaires were brought up to Mrs. Thomas she mentioned that one of her past students created a software and now, as a junior in college, works for Microsoft. Mr. Hamel is also very interested in the outcome because he has his first student in the engineering division and is very interested to see the outcome.