KEETMANSHOOP: The Karas Region was crowned the overall winner of the National Science Fair Competition for 2012 at a prize-giving ceremony held in Windhoek on Thursday.
This was the second time in row that the southern region won the annual science competition, walking away with a trophy and gold medals.
The Khomas Region won the competition in 2010.
Johan Mostert, the manager at the Teachers’ Resource Centre (TRC) here and a member of the regional science fair organising committee, confirmed the region’s win to Nampa on Monday.
The Khomas Region landed in second place in this year’s competition, while the third place was won by the Otjozondjupa Region.
The competition involves learners from different schools in all 13 regions who present their science projects to a panel of judges. This year however, only 98 schools from 12 regions participated as no schools from the Hardap Region were represented.
A total of 31 learners from 18 primary and 13 secondary schools from the Karas Region participated in the competition, which took place in Windhoek from 11 to 13 September.
The Rosh Pinah Academy was the best performer in the primary school category, followed by Windhoek’s St George’s Diocesan School and Oranjemund Private School in second and third place respectively.
In the secondary school category, Oranjemund Private School was in first place, followed by St Paul’s College and Windhoek Gymnasium Private School.
Barren van Es of Rosh Pinah Academy won the Human Science category and received a gold medal and N.dollars 500 in cash, while Peace Shimwino and Ethan-Rade da Rocha from Oranjemund were the overall best performers in the mathematics and statistics categories, respectively.
They also received gold medals and N.dollars 500 each.
In the Environment Science category, the best learners were Jemma Ebstein and Shannon Els, who received gold medals and N.dollars 500 each as well.
The annual science fair is hosted by national power utility, NamPower.
More good news for Karas is that learners of the Oosterheim Junior Secondary School at Aroab village won the Bank of Namibia 2012 National High School Competition.
They received N.dollars 5 000 at an awards ceremony held in the capital on Friday.