Colorado State University

The Special Awards Program is an integral part of the Colorado Science & Engineering Fair that allows organizations, businesses and individuals to support science education by rewarding and interacting with CSEF participants in specialized areas of interest to the sponsoring organization, business or individual. Special Awards supplement the Grand (place) Awards Program by allowing more participation of professional scientists and by rewarding more students for their outstanding scientific endeavors. Awards may include cash, savings bonds, memberships, subscriptions scientific equipment, computers, internships, etc. Awards given by an organization must have a total value of at least $50 and organizations are limited to a total of 4 awards.

The Colorado Science & Engineering Fair (CSEF), which stresses inquiry-based science education, is the culmination of science fair participation starting in the individual schools and home schools, moving through Regional Science Fairs and on to the CSEF. Outstanding high school students from the CSEF are then sponsored to compete at the Regeneron International Science & Engineering Fair.

The goal of the Special Awards Program, in addition to rewarding students for great work in expanding their interests in science and engineering, is to provide a peer interaction with professional scientists and engineers, to peak student interest in science fields to which they may not have been aware of and to provide a bridge to further interaction between professional scientists and students.

Participation in the Special Awards Program is determined by the individual professional organization, business or individual and is coordinated through the CSEF. The Special Awards Program is a simple process. Once the organization has decided to participate, they need to provide an award equal to $50 or greater, identify judges to interview the students and present the award(s) at the Awards Ceremony.

The advantages for sponsoring organizations are many: (1) to support science education in Colorado; (2) to support individual science students in their scientific endeavors; (3) to interact with the top science students in the state on a peer to peer level; (4) to offer advice and help students within their scientific areas of expertise; (5) to invite students to further explore the organization’s area of science; and (6) to invite the winning students to an organizational event. Through your participation in the Special Awards Program, we can assure that you will be awed by the science that these students are producing and will be encouraged to know that quality science education is alive and well in the country.

New organizations wishing to join this prestigious group of Special Award Organizations should review the CSEF Special Awards Program Policy and then submit a new Special Award Organization Registration Form to csef@colostate.edu. You will then be contacted by a CSEF representative.

Returning organizations that participated in previous CSEFs will be emailed their individual registration forms by February 1, 2025 for updating.

Organizations wanting to award scholarships or internships should contact David Holm, the Scholarship/Internship Committee Chair. They should also consult the Special Awards Program Policy for more information.

At the 2024 CSEF, the following scholarships and internships were awarded:

• Colorado School of Mines awarded seven $1,000 renewable tuition scholarships to deserving 11th grade students from the categories of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Earth & Space Sciences, Energy, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Mathematics & Computer Sciences, Medicine & Health and/or Physics.
• A $5,000 non-renewable scholarship was awarded to the best Senior Division project related to CO2 & greenhouse gas reduction.