There were 11 students from Monte Vista High who competed in the 2022 Regional Science Fair, which is a basis for the upcoming National Geographic Television documentary Science Fair: The Series.
Of the 11, three went on to compete in the coveted International Science and Engineering Fair – Marissa Martinez, Chloe Hindes and Claire Seger. A fourth student, Carlos Ochoa, is one of the students featured closely in the National Geographic documentary, along with Martinez and Hindes.
Martinez is in her freshman year at Colorado State University, while Ochoa is a freshman at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, and Hindes is in her sophomore year at Colorado School of Mines. Other students who were part of the 2022 team and were part of the documentary taping were Urianna Acosta, Maria Sears, Angelina Vargas, Gus Miller, Jack Noonan, Grace Goodland and Joseph Benavides.
The National Geographic TV documentary airs beginning Sunday, Dec. 10, on National Geographic Television and then Monday, Dec. 11, on Hulu and Disney+ streaming apps. The documentary tells the story of high school students like Monte Vista’s who are focused and passionate about science fairs and solving “the world’s problems through science.”
Monte Vista High has a long history of excellence in science research and its science fair program going back to the early 1980s thanks to Gary Wilkinson, now a retired chemistry teacher and former Monte Vista School Board president. In the 2014-15 school year, Loree Harvey moved up from the middle school to the high school and took over the science research position.
“Research is one of my first loves, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have conducted undergraduate research at Adams State College (as it was known back then) and throughout graduate school at Northern Arizona University (MS in Biology),” Harvey said of her passion for the work. She continues to work as a contracted field biologist for the Bureau of Land Management in the summer, which she said allows her to get students involved as interns whenever the fit is right for them.