On Saturday April 13, the 2019 Indiana State You Be The Chemist Challenge was held at The Heritage Group’s The Center in Intech Park on the NW side of Indianapolis. This was the 8^th year that Indiana has been participating in the You Be The Chemist Challenge. The Chemical Educational Foundation’s You Be The Chemist Challenge celebrates and elevates the science of chemistry to inspire students to explore the field. It is a local, state, and national academic competition for students in grades 5-8, when most U.S. students have not studied chemistry as its own subject.

The top 40 students from the four Indiana Local Challenges in Evansville, St Joseph County, Indianapolis North and Indianapolis South which occurred throughout February and March participated in the 2019 Indiana State You Be The Chemist Challenge.

The 40 students participating in the 2019 Indiana State You Be The Chemist Challenge

Kurt Hettinga, President of Superior Solvents & Chemicals and Member of the Chemical Educational Foundation Board of Trustees and Linda Osborn, Project Chemist at The Heritage Research Group welcomed the students and audience and shared some inspiring remarks for the students.

The challenge consisted of 7 Rounds of chemistry based multiple choice questions which were used to identify of the top 4 students of this year’s state competition. Congratulations to all 40 students who participated as they were all winners already being the top students from the Indiana Local Challenges. All 40 students received a participant medal, certificate and CEF giveaway.

The top four students received plaques and Amazon gift cards. This year’s challenge Champion was 8^th grade student Grace Zhang. 2^nd Place went to 6^th grade student Rohan Bhosale, 3^rd Place went to 8^th grade student Noah Meroueh and 4^th Place went to 8^th Grade student Geetika Chitturi. Grace, Rohan and Geetika are from the Carmel Chemistry Club which was composed of students from Carmel Middle School and Noah is from Creekside Middle School. Grace Zhang will now advance to the 2019 You Be The Chemist National Challenge at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington DC on June 17 where she will be representing Indiana. Grace was the Indiana State Challenge Champion last year and participated in the 2018 You Be The Chemist National Challenge.

Left to Right: Grace Zhang, Rohan Bhosale, Noah Meroueh and Geetika Chitturi

There was also a drawing for a 12” plasma globe. All educators who had students participating in one of the four Indiana You Be The Chemist Local Challenges were eligible. Michele Schulz, Lebanon Middle School was the winner.

Michele Shultz and several of her students experimenting with their new plasma globe

Our sincere thanks to the teachers and parents of this year’s challenge participants for supporting and encouraging them as they prepared for the Local and State challenges.

A special thanks to Kurt Hettinga (President, Superior Solvents and Chemicals) and Linda Osborn (Project Chemist, The Heritage Research Group) for their welcoming and inspiring remarks to the students and audience, to Patricia Maldonado (Associate Consultant, Quality R&D at Elanco) for serving as the moderator for this year’s state challenge, to Marcia Gillette (Professor at IU Kokomo), Dylan Engels (Chemist at Superior Solvents and Chemicals) and Linda Osborn (Chemist at Heritage Research Group) for serving as content judges, and to Mary Pat Knadler (Lilly retiree) and Kurt Graper (Dow AgroSciences retiree) for serving as conduct judges.

And our sincerest thanks to the sponsors for this year’s state Challenge, Superior Solvent and Chemicals and The Heritage Research Group.