This week on Roses & Thorns, I must first apologize for not writing one last week. I took a break from writing because of my thorn for this week. So without further ado, this week’s rose goes to the BPHS students who competed in PJAS at regionals. The thorn this week goes to my current archenemy, the common cold.

So let’s begin! PJAS stands for Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science. Students across the state complete experiments, write up detailed reports, and present these reports to a panel of judges with knowledge of the field in which the experiment was created and a room full of students who completed projects in the same field. These projects and reports take up a lot of time and require great dedication.

So this week I give a FUTURISTIC SPACE AGE SILVER ROSE to all of the students who competed at regionals. Earning First Place Awards were juniors James Fleckenstein for his project entitled “Age’s Effect on Cyber Security” and Jessica Viehman for “Can Eco-Friendly Concrete Be Viable?” Also earning a first place was sophomore Emily Cowser for her experiment “Cracking the Code about Fracking.” Earning second place awards were senior Jeremy Huwe for his experiment, “The Relationship between Arrow Flexibility on Penetration” and sophomore Lindsay Waldbaum for her project “Do Colors Affect the Way We Feel?” The first place winners are now eligible to compete at the statewide competition in May at Penn State University. Congratulations!

Next up is a villain we all know, the common cold, but when it strikes it feels anything but common. Imparting sore throats, coughs, runny noses, headaches, the list goes on and on and on. The common cold is caused by more than 200 different viruses and as such there is no cure or vaccine. It can spread through the air, person to person contact, and even contact with something an infected person has touched. So to my current nemesis, I give a HEADACHE INDUCING FEVERISH AND SORE THROAT CAUSING THORN.

Have an idea for next week’s Roses & Thorns? Comment below to share your idea! You can also tweet ideas to @Greydon_T or @hawkeyebphs. Who’s the next rose? Who’s the next thorn? Find out next week on Hawk Eye!