Saturday, Feb. 17, Courtney Schaeffer was awarded second place in the Quad Cities Science Fair held at the Putnam Museum and Science Center.

The science fair lasted most of the day, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.. In order to participate, students must be enrolled in a middle or high school within the Quad Cities.

¨The lab [Courtney] did was one that we did in the medical interventions class that
I teach and then she built a whole background, methodology, and created the results for the science fair,¨ science teacher Brandon Yoder said.

Schaeffer presented a scientific experiment on antibiotic resistance. She demonstrated this by showing the bacterial conjugations between two separate strains of E. coli. The experiment took four days to conduct and the rest of the research took around a week.

“There were a lot of other good projects there, so I was honored but a little surprised when I got second place,¨ Schaeffer said.

As for the future, Schaeffer plans to continue studying science and use her education to benefit her medical career. In the meantime she is taking many science courses at West.

¨As a new instructor, her presence has been very welcome in class,¨ science teacher John Arnold said. ¨I thought she was going to get a top prize for sure.¨

There were around 40 other students in the science fair and Schaeffer had 10 days to create her project because of her late sign up.

¨Courtney is determined. She really wants to understand why things are and she has this desire to learn,¨ Yoder said