Two Maharishi School sophomores swept the top prizes at the Eastern Iowa State Science Fair (EISEF), as well as the State Science and Technology Fair of Iowa (SSTFI) with their project entitled, "Farm Feeding Practices: Exploring Solutions for Environmental Sustainability." They won the most coveted prize - a free trip to participate at the INTEL International Science Fair in San Jose.  They also won the Iowa Junior Academy of Science (IJAS) award for their project.

The students tested water near three different types of farms: confined animal feeding operations, conventional farms, and organic farms. They discovered much lower levels bound phosphorous (a pollutant) near organic farms in contrast to very high levels of the pollution near the confined feeding operations. Bound phosphorous lowers oxygen levels, which damages the environment and creates dead zones.

Maharishi School Head, Dr. Richard Beall, said, "We are proud of the social significance of their topic. This research bears real consequence on public health."

Six middle school students represented Maharishi School in Ottumwa at the Mathcounts Chapter Level Competition. About 50 middle school students from Southeast Iowa competed. The team earned second place overall.

Two Maharishi School students were in the Countdown round, a one-on-one race-to-the-buzzer competition for the top 10 individual scorers. One of these students had the top score in the individual rounds and ended with a second place finish after the Countdown round. He will represent Maharishi School at the State Competition in Des Moines on March 26.

The Mathcounts Competition Program provides the extra incentive and the perfect atmosphere for students to push themselves to achieve more in mathematics. Using fun and creative problems, the Mathcounts competitions have written and oral rounds, as well as individual and team components. The competition problems focus on the 6th through 8th grade standards of the National Council of Teachers in Mathematics.

A Maharishi School 10th grade girl won the Critics Choice banner--the top award--in the solo mime category at the annual Iowa High School Speech Association All-State Festival at the Iowa State University Center in Ames.

"Experiment #392: The Transformation" portrayed a mad scientist and brought the audience to its feet when she finished.

Also making it to the final competition and performing at the All-State Festival was a girls' choral reading group performing "Dreams." Two groups received honorable mention, an ensemble acting group performing "Dancing at Lughnasa," and a reader's theater group performing "Fully Committed."

Eight Maharishi School groups participated overall, with seven getting top scores at the regional competition and going to state, and four of those making it to the final competition at All-State.

A team of six Maharishi School students recently won the Iowa robotics championship, competing against 17 other teams from across Iowa and including three out-of-state teams from Illinois and Los Angeles.

The team will now be getting ready for the 2010 World Championships in Atlanta, Georgia, in April.

The competition, part of a nationwide program for students, entailed seeing whose robot would perform best in a ball-tossing game called HotShot.

The students are members of the new Maharishi School robotics club. The students' work on the robot was part of the curriculum as an elective taught by Ali Arsanjani, MUM computer science faculty and IBM chief technology officer for emerging technologies.

The competition is part of the FIRST Robotics Competition, which is sponsored by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a nonprofit organization founded in 1989 by Segway inventor Dean Kamen to encourage student team-building skills, entrepreneurship, and "gracious professionalism."