BUCKHANNON, West Virginia – Bringing together high school students interested in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, the West Virginia Junior Science and Humanities Symposium will take place Feb. 17-18 on the campus of West Virginia Wesleyan College.

The symposium has been held for nearly 50 years with West Virginia Wesleyan College hosting, according to Dr. Tracey DeLaney, JSHS regional director and an assistant professor at WVWC.

Students in ninth through 12th grades select an area of research from environmental science, life and behavior sciences, medicine and health, biomedical sciences, engineering and technology, math and computer science or computer engineering, physical sciences and chemistry.

The students then submit an abstract and research paper. Those selected will present their findings in an oral presentation with a digital component at the symposium.

The program is sponsored by the Department of Defense and awards scholarships at the regional and national levels. Regional winners can win $2,000 for first place, $1,500 for second place and $1,000 for third place.

“In addition to the JSHS funding, West Virginia Wesleyan College will also award up to $4,000 in scholarships to our regional winners,” she said.

The top five students from the regional symposium move on to the national symposium which takes place this year in Virginia Beach, Virginia on April 12-15.

There are additional scholarships – up to $12,000 for first place – at the national level.

“It’s a wonderful scholarship program,” DeLaney said. “In my own experience, there were so few opportunities to earn scholarship money for a poor kid in rural Minnesota,” she said. “To the extent that this is another mechanism for students to seek out scholarship money, this really helps them out.”

The program is advertised to teachers statewide through a list-serve so they can share with their students.

“We are able to award $500 to a teacher whose student participates in JSHS that they can then use in their own classrooms for whatever they need,” she said. “There’s an incentive for teachers to encourage their students to present here at JSHS as well.”

The deadline for entries is Sunday, Feb. 12.

For more information and an application, visit https://jshs.org/region/west-virginia/.