STERLING GMOs, water treatment and fracking: Those were just a few of the topics students presented research on at the 60th annual Northeast Colorado Regional Science Fair, held Thursday at Northeastern Junior College.

Approximately 26 students from Sterling High School, Merino Junior High and High School, Haxtun High School, Liberty High and Middle School and Wray High School competed in this year's event.

"I hope you go out and make a mark in science. You all have a great start to do that," Penny Propst told the students, when she and science fair director Sonya Shaw presented awards.

One student who participated in this year's event was SHS junior Kylee Harless, who studied the effects of limited irrigation on GMO sweet corn versus non-GMO sweet corn.

Pictured are the senior division state qualifiers at the 60th annual Northeast Regional Science Fair. From left; Hannah Niccoli (Liberty), third runner up; Abbey Brower (Sterling), fifth runner up; Jayden Durbin (Haxtun), Best of Fair Overall Winner; Paulyna Alcorn (Wray), fourth runner up; Emma Scholz (Sterling), second runner up; and Casey Shaw (Liberty), Best of Fair Overall Winner. (Callie Jones / Sterling Journal-Advocate)

"I'm a big science geek; science is where it's at for me," she said about why she decided to participate in the science fair for the first time this year.

Harless, a member of the SHS FFA chapter, had planned to enter the Agribusiness Fair and when her teacher mentioned she should join the school's science research class, she jumped at the chance.

"We get to pick our own project and research it yourself, so you get to be the scientist," she said about the class.

After hearing about the 2014 election question Proposition 105, which had it passed would have required labeling on genetically modified food, Harless decided she wanted to do something on GMOs, so she decided to study the effects of limited irrigation on GMO sweet corn and non-GMO sweet corn.

At the end of her project, she concluded that GMO plants can survive better with the right amount of water and GMO plants with limited water could survive longer than the non-GMO plants with limited water.

Read the rest here:
26 projects entered at Northeast Colorado Regional Science Fair