As you know, I recently returned from a trip to Asia, where I visited 8 cities in 3 countries over 17 days. By the end of the trip, I often didn’t know where I was when I woke up in the morning. It didn’t help that I was reading an excellent book called A Field Guide to Getting Lost. For Rebecca Solnit, being lost is the prerequisite for living a meaningful life. We must abandon what we know, she says, to discover something new, to build our lives afresh. Thoreau once wrote, “Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves.” Solnit elaborates: “The question then is how to get lost. Never to get lost is not to live, not to know how to get lost brings you to destruction, and somewhere in the terra incognita in between lies a life of discovery.”
We’re just now emerging from the darkness of winter, a time when many people feel a little lost. If we’ve truly allowed ourselves to abandon some of the things we thought we knew, if we’ve truly allowed ourselves to surrender old patterns, if we’ve truly allowed ourselves to stand lost among life’s many directions, maybe now we can discover a new path. My hope is that this spring can be a time of discovery, of reaping the rewards of getting lost, of recognizing something new in ourselves and our world that we wouldn’t have noticed without the benefit of being lost.
Science Fair
After months of toil, our Middle School and Upper School students who participated in the Science Fair have truly embraced the ideal of discovery. Since my last Newsletter, our students competed in the Eastern Iowa Science and Engineering Fair and then the State Science and Technology Fair of Iowa. From developing a social-emotional learning curriculum for first-generation immigrants to an early detection model for Type II diabetes, these projects captured the best of intellectual rigor and “consciousness in action” — research that has real-world relevance. Students who received special recognition are listed below.
Eastern Iowa Science and Engineering Fair, Mar. 21, 2026
There were 221 participants at the EISEF.
- Oliver — Inspiring Excellence Award, $50 prize
- Kyran — Naval Science Award
- Yangyi — Naval Science Award
- Huy — Senior Biological Honorable Mention
- Sohni and Sohani — Senior Biological Award
- Kostia — Senior Biological Award, Ricoh Corporation Prize
- Ken — Senior Physical Science Award, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Prize
- Antariksha — Senior Biological Award ($100), US Air Force Award, Regeneron Biomedical Sciences Award ($375), 7-year participation ($50), Senior Grand Champion
- Antariksha’s project was strong enough that she was advanced straight to the International Science and Engineering Fair later this Spring.
State Science and Technology Fair of Iowa, March 26-27, 2026
There were 782 students representing 85 schools.
Middle School
- Mehar — Technology and Arts Honorable Mention
- Prithvi — Engineering Honorable Mention
- Daisy, Lilah, Ryder — Food and Technology Honorable Mention
- Nhi — Association for Women Geoscientists Award and Ricoh Award
- Apollo — Mathematical Sciences, 3rd Place, Tinker Around Award
Upper School
- Fuji — Rising Star Award
- Agnes — Association for Women Geoscientists Award
- Yangyi — Iowa State University Future Discovery Award
- Kostia — Ricoh Corporation Award; U.S. Metric Association Award; $1000 Loras College Scholarship
- Huy — Microbiology Honorable Mention; $500 Scholarship to Loras College
- Ken — Earth and Environmental Sciences Honorable Mention; Ricoh Corporation Award; NASA Earth Systems Science Award; Iowa DNR Thinking Outside the Box Award; Citadel Securities Innovation Prize
- Ben — Behavioral and Social Sciences 3rd Place, $1000 Scholarship from ISU
- Kyran — Behavioral and Social Sciences 2nd Place
- Adham and Pranit — Computer Science 1st Place, $750 Scholarship (each) from Loras College
A HUGE congratulations to all of our students for representing the school so well, and for all the work they put into their projects. And to Mr. Aikar and Ms. Asha for their unwavering support of our students. It’s truly inspiring.
Future Business Leaders of America
Right after the state Science Fair, our FBLA Club traveled to Cedar Rapids for the State FBLA competition, March 29-31. In many cases, these were the same students who spent Spring Break exhibiting their Science Fair projects!
Out of 1200 competitors, several of our students earned Top 10 Awards in their category:
- Camille and Clary — Business Plan, 9th Place
- Sohani — Introduction to Business Procedures, 8th Place
- Future Business Educator — Ria, 6th Place
- Real Estate — Sohni, 3rd Place
- Journalism, Sohni, 2nd Place
What a week!
Rocketry
Finally, our Rocketry team continues to pursue their passionate interest in this impressive exercise. If you’re not familiar it, students in the American Rocketry Challenge must build a rocket and then equip it to reach a specific height within a specific time interval. The height and time interval change depending on the competition, so students are constantly adjusting their calculations and equipment to meet the challenge as closely as they can. This year’s Challenge asked students to launch rockets to a height of 750 feet, with 36-39 seconds elapsing between launch and landing.
Our student-led team of Ken, Ekko, Ben, Pranit, and Adham fought through several initial misfires to launch two incredibly successful flights. They reached 744′ and 756′ on their two flights, with one flight falling precisely within the intended time range, and one falling just outside of it. They now await the other 1,106 teams to complete the challenge to determine if they’ll qualify for Nationals.
This Challenge is a true example of the spirit of design and resilience, as failure and adjustment are built into the exercise. Stay tuned for updates.