More than 400 students bestowing their science knowledge at 6th annual Fresno County Science Fair

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Trial and error and countless hours of research-that is only a little, of what it took students to get to the 65th annual Fresno County Science Fair.

400 students from 6th to 12th grade are competing in different categories.

"These are students who love science or math or engineering and they really want to practice it, research it and be all invested in it," said Science Fair Director Jennifer Weibert.

For the competition it takes more than Papier Mache volcanos to take top honors, only the best of the best in the Central Valley compete, like Sophomore Scott Caw in the senior division.

"I studied the climate during the Miocene epoch with is time between 23 and 5 billion years ago," said Cao.

His project is a study on climate that took him months to complete.

"It took pretty much the entire summer and it was grueling because I was literally seeing from a microscope picking out these kinds of sediments, it was a lot of work," said Cao.

Over in the eighth-grade category, Ashley Schletewitz presented her project on using a plant as a natural fungicide.

"I decided to take this plant that is called horsetail to see if it would lend some of its properties of not molding in the moisture to the citrus fruit," said Schletewitz.

Prizes of up to $15,000, scholarships and trophies were all on the line, but that is not all. The students also have a chance at one of four coveted spots at the International Science Engineering Fair, the largest pre-college science competition.

The prizes may be enticing, but Cap says an award is not what makes him a winner.

"And although I'd like to go to Intel for more people to exposed to something like this, that is not my main goal, that is not my main goal of this project is to show people how our climate has been changing," said Cao.