Hays High School, specifically science teacher Lynn Zimmerman’s Human Biology classes, participate in the University of Kansas (KU) Night @ the Lab annually. This year, one of the groups, including seniors Ashton Bickle, Landen Clark and Peyton Zimmerman, advanced to the state competition and took first.

Zimmerman’s class has had success in this competition before; two teams have won in the past in 2018 and again in 2019.

The competition begins at regionals, and then the Top 6 teams compete against each other again at state at KU Medical Center. The teams that advanced to the statewide competition were rewarded with hotel accommodations, meals, and a tour of some of the research departments at KU Medical Center.

Bickle, Clark and Zimmerman based their project on ingredients in energy drinks and the effects they have on the heart. They beat Garden City, Junction City, Olathe North and a magnet school from Wichita.

“It was really nerve racking because we won on a tiebreaker,” Clark said. “they said we won the tiebreaker based on our energy during the presentation. It was really rewarding because we had worked for weeks on this project.”
23mtaggart@usd489.com