55th CPS City Science Fair!

Every year  when Greg Lopatka was at Randolph School, he would get a call from John Kent, Chairman of the Science Fair Exhibit Committee.  Now that John is retired,  Allen Nelson calls and Greg says, "yes". 
Greg has been posting CPS Science Fair Web pages since 1996 when he was posting the Randolph Web page.  When He retired in 2001, some of the early pages were removed from the Randolph website, so He has been posting them on his
lopatka.net site. Allen had the unenviable task of trying to fill the big shoes of John Kent, but he has come through with flying colors for the past 2 years.  He used his long time experience with John and the members of the Exhibits Committee to pull off this Herculean task.
2 years ago, the Mayor gave an inspirational speech to the stu

Allen Nelson gets his hard working committee workers ready for the opening ceremony..

Allen Nelson poses with some of his helpers.

dents and asked the TV cameras to turn and give some air time to the students that worked for months on their projects.  He mentioned that the law breaking protesters get hours of news coverage  while these kids go unnoticed.  The Mayor didn't show up for the second year in a row up and all of the TV camera crews found more important things to cover, so the students were pushed aside again.
Anyone that has ever tried to motivate teenagers into creating a science project knows that it helps when they get some media coverage.  It is no wonder that students feel that they have an easier time trying to get famous with sports achievements. 

Michael Spillman became the youngest plaque maker, when he helped his grandpa, Greg Lopatka.

Exit Committee members, Marvin Nochowitz and Ramya Sivaraj

CEO of the CPS, Arne Duncan chats with visitors after the ribbon is cut.

49th CPS City Science Fair 1999
50th City Science Fair 2000

Region 5 Science Fair 2001

51st City Science Fair 2001

52nd City Science Fair 2002

53rd City Science Fair 2003

54th City Science Fair 2004

55th City Science Fair 2005