Valleywide : Wise Students Sweep State NASA Awards

Students from Stephen Wise Middle School swept the top three awards at a recent NASA science competition, edging out students from more than 500 teams from public and private schools statewide.

The 1995 Mission to Planet Earth competition was sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Teachers Assn. Participants submitted essays on environmental challenges and how satellites can help monitor the effects of human activities upon the environment.

The winners were:

Ben Barron of Encino, Daren Schlecter of Sherman Oaks and Daniel Carmy of Beverly Hills, first place; Nicki Marmet of Tarzana, Michael Silver of Sherman Oaks, Oren Tepper of Encino and Adam Grant of Rancho Park, second, and Matt Pouldar of Sherman Oaks, Rodney Rad of Woodland Hills and Allen Landver of Beverly Hills, third.

Officials at Wise, a private school in the hills above Sherman Oaks, were surprised to obtain all of the competition’s top awards, which were announced in May.

“We spent a lot of time on the projects, and they did a lot of hard work,” said Marilynn Seemann, a Wise science instructor. “I didn’t expect first, second and third. I was just hoping for one of the top spots.”

Submissions featured written reports that analyzed environmental problems, outlined efforts to solve them and suggested new solutions.

“It think it’s the first time they had to take an in-depth look at environmental problems,” said Seemann. “They also had to use major research tools, and that was a new experience for many of them.”