The Academy of Applied Sciences unites with the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force in cooperation with colleges and universities across the nation to inspire young people each year to value science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) through its Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS) program. Since its inception in 1958, JSHS has been designed to promote original research and experimentation in STEM and humanities related fields at the high school level. Publicly recognizing high school students for outstanding achievement, JSHS aims to broaden the pool of trained talent prepared to conduct research and development vital to our nation.

On Thursday, March 28^th and Friday, March 29^th Wayne State University and the College of Education hosted the 49^th annual Southeastern Michigan Junior Science and Humanities Symposium at the McGregor Conference Center on the Wayne State campus. This regional event brought together 90 of Michigan’s most talented high school students, their parents, teachers, and research professionals from 15 local area schools. Seventeen of the students presented research papers to a panel of judges in four breakout and poster sessions. The young scholars designed sophisticated and advanced experiments to problems related to genetics, diseases, and human behavior. Even though they are all worthy of mentioning individually, four young scholars were selected as finalists of the Southeastern Michigan regional symposium.  Two of them (1st and 2nd place winners) will move on as finalists scheduled to present their research at the May 1-5, 2013 national JSHS event in Dayton, Ohio where they will compete with over 240 other students from across the nation.

The overall goal of JSHS is to develop a desire in young people for the greater good in advancing the nation’s progress in science, technology, and humanities. It is always important to “promote the best of what America has to offer – among those characteristics must be an education system that offers students the freedom to inquire, to explore, to fail and to succeed – to create elegant and creative solutions to the pressing problems of our times,” states Carolyn Shields, Ph.D., dean of the College of Education. She commented, “We must put our minds, our resources, and our hearts into supporting these students’ work, and into our efforts to work collaboratively across academic disciplines and boundaries to help nurture and develop these students’ talents, because these young scholars are truly our future.”  According to Maria Ferreira, Ph.D., associate professor and coordinator of Science Education and JSHS director in the College of Education, “Students’ research projects are often the result of summer research internships at Michigan research universities as well as universities across the country. Although there are several students who are able to work independently or with the help of their teachers, the quality of research they produce is high quality.” The College of Education is proud to have served as sponsor of this event at Wayne State University for the past 49 years.