A record-breaking 41 students from the Kent School District were among the 463 students competing at the recent 54th annual Washington State Science and Engineering Fair in Bremerton.

Kent students won 15 first-place awards, six second-place honors, three third-place awards, four honorable mention and seven special awards.

The fair was April 1-2 at Bremerton High School.

Special credit goes to teacher leader Michele Chamberlain who is finding innovative ways to involve her current and former students in inquiry driven activities, according to a Kent School District media release. Chamberlain developed a support system for current students by using her former students who have science fair experience as mentors.

This is a significant cultural shift in terms of the number of students participating and the increasing quality of the projects. Chamberlain’s vision and leadership resulted in her being one of the nominees for the 2011 Washington State Science and Engineering Fair Teacher of the Year Award.

Here are the Kent results at the fair:

Meridian Middle School – Junior Division First Place: Sevda Aslanova and Lyubra Krasteva; Katie Berger and Cindy Chen; Rachael Evans and Tianna Hansen; Ashley Honda and Christina Keovongphet; Frankie Curry Edwards; Amber Chandler-Faas; Kristen Strenge. Junior Division Second Place: Liliya Kondratyuk and Maryanna Solovey. Junior Division Third Place: Aly Perez and Torey Robinson. Honorable Mention: Monique Flores and Diana Gibson.

Mill Creek Middle School – Junior Division First Place: Paul Choi; Oorja Chowdhary. Junior Division Second Place: Justin Ambalada and Gavin Bell and Jack Ely; Sean Chounlamany and Nikita Grover. Junior Division Third Place, Spencer Stromberg.

Sunrise Elementary School – Junior Division First Place: Hariharan Malmurugan; Juliana Litvinenko and Apoorva Chowdhary. Junior Division Second Place: Karthikeyan Malmurigan.

Kentwood High School – Senior Division Honorable Mention, Erin Lawyer and Hira Shin.

Other awards: Cindy Chen and Katie Berger, Naval Science Award; Oorja Chowdhary, Boradcom MASTERS Award; Apoorva Chowdhary, Spencer Stromberg, Hariharan Malmurugan, and Juliana Litvinenko, Museum of Flight Award.