Science Fair 2011

Since 2006 Rotary Central has sponsored an annual Science Fair that is open to all middle and high school students throughout the Cayman Islands. Students compete for 3 prizes in each of 5 categories - Earth Sciences, including the environment, weather, astronomy and ecology: Food and health: Life sciences, including microbiology, botany or zoology: Physics/chemistry: Computer Science. This year's event was held at the Arts and Recreational Center at Camana Bay on Saturday, April 2nd. There were 45 displays by 65 students for this year's event and many of the displays were in the sub-category of Health and Environment, with a number of the top finishers coming from those sub-categories. The keynote speaker of the evening's banquet was Mr. Courtney Platt. Having minored in marine biology in California, Mr. Platt then taught scuba diving at Bob Soto's Diving from 1983-1986, during which time he made over 2,400 scuba dives and witnessed the last of our largest, friendly reef fish disappear. He then made over 2,500 dives as pilot of the deep subs diving to 1,000' between 1986 and 2004. This experience has given him an intimacy with Cayman's reefs shared by only a handful of people who have worked in our diving industry for many years. A seasoned professional photographer, Courtney has been photographing underwater since 1976 with 8 assignments for National Geographic Magazine among his credits. He chose as his topic for the evening "25 years of Marine Parks Regulations… Why it Matters to All Caymanians…Why and How Everyone Must help". His presentation was well received by all in attendance as he highlighted the importance of our marine environment and how everyone can play a part in preserving its importance through responsible and conservative actions.