Research

A primary goal is to lead students to develop skills required for completion of advanced scientific research. All students are required to take both the junior and senior year Science and Technology Seminar and Project courses. The junior year of the course introduces students to the process of science, research methodology, ethical considerations, need for objectivity and peer review, as well as skills in communicating scientific findings. The senior year course exposes students to the vast opportunities associated with research and development. In both years, students select, design, and conduct a research project under the direction of a project sponsor or mentor. Students are expected to complete relevant, meritorious projects of high quality. Students present their work orally and visually at science consortia and create formal written research publications. Students from the Governor's School are highly competitive at Regional, State, and International levels of science and engineering fairs.

SWVGS is proud of its long history of leading students in completion of highly competitive research projects. Nearly thirty SWVGS students have had the opportunity to compete in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in the past two decades. Many of those students won place awards or special awards at ISEF, the world's largest international pre-college science competition.

Additionally, SWVGS has participated in the Virginia Junior Academy of Science (VJAS) for over two decades. Awards won by SWVGS students at VJAS (since 2007 when VJAS began online publication), abstracts of places winners, and full-papers of first-place winners may be found here.