RISC - October 11th, 2012

We had our 2nd meeting of RISC last thursday. We had a member turnout of 15 people, a respectable increase over our initial 12 members. Whats even more, about half of our members were entirely new. Another event was going on at the school, causing some members to be 

temporarily absent, thus our unique membership count is actually close to 20 members. Our facebook group has well over 200 members, with nearly half of these members actively checking the wall for posts and updates. So far, in terms of member engagement, RISC is doing well. 

In this meeting, we focused primarily on the topics that successful students in the science fairs of the past have chosen. 

I gave at least 10 examples of various students all across the world doing science fair topics ranging from the effects of caffeine on the body to even experimental cancer therapy. In general, many students came out of the meeting feeling inspired. Some of the more ambitious members felt strong feelings towards Jack Andraka, the winner of the 2012 Intel International Science 

Fair. He was at the time, a 9th grader, who found out a much cheaper way to detect pancreatic cancer as well as many other generic forms of cancer. His method, while being much cheaper is also much more accurate. Considering the damaging treatments of chemotherapy today, this was a real breakthrough. We presented his story in the meeting, and it truly did touch the thoughts of many RISC members.

Overall, our meeting was a success. We confirmed a brief meeting for tomorrow, the 18th of October, to talk about final topic ideas of RISC members.