For the fifth year in a row, St. Joseph High School had a unique event take place - a science symposium. In this competition, students do a science project and then make a presentation of it on videotape. Copies are made of the tape which were given to six professional people to be judged. The judging took place during the month of May.
All of the winners were in the 11th grade.The first place winner for the second time was Gianna Schjang for "Measuring Low-Level Nuclear Radiation". As a part of her project, Schjang measured the amount of radiation coming from a salt substitute and was surprised to find a definite level of radioactivity above the background count. All salt substitutes and dietary supplements that contain Potassium have this higher level of radioactivity because of the naturally occuring isotope, Potassium-40 which is part of all Potassium. Schjang used a computer connected geiger counter to measure the radiation and hopes to try to do the Carbon-14 dating of ancient artifacts in the future.
Winning second place was Sylvia Connor-Navarro for "Which UV Rays Are More Harmful?" She used a special instrument for measuring the strength of the Ultraviolet A and B radiation coming from the sun on different days. Knowing the strength of these rays is especially important in the Virgin Islands because of their greater amount and for their contributing to skin cancer.
Taking third place was Eliana Schuster (who is also Miss St. Joseph for the 2004-2005 school year) "Which LIquid Substances Are Denser Than The Other?". Schuster's project showed the basic concept of density both experimentally and mathematically. If it was not for that concept, ships and icebergs would not float and that would be a disaster not only for VI tourism but for the climate of the world.
Many useful prizes including digital cameras, personal digital assistants (PDA's), and binoculars were awarded to the winners.