Four high school students will be given $10,000 each in scholarships next month at Utah's regional science fairs for projects that use software to solve any particular technology-related problem.

The scholarships, funded by Symantec, which is working in conjunction with Science Buddies to help build interest in the fairs, will be handed out to participants at the regional science fairs, including the Central Utah Science and Engineering Fair at BYU.

"The first thing I thought when I heard about it is that $10,000 is a lot of money," said Ben Arnold, a scholarship winner from last year who is now studying electrical engineering at BYU.

In order for students to compete, they must be selected to participate in a Utah regional science fair by winning both their school and district science fairs.

"I was shaking in anticipation," Arnold said, talking about last year's science fair. "I didn't know if I was going to win it. There were a lot of good products there."

Arnold, who heard about the scholarship in his engineering class at Provo High, won the prize for software he designed to troubleshoot traffic sensors.

"There were other really good projects there," Arnold said. "I was surprised."

According to the various regional science fair Web sites, prize scholarships range from $50 to $20,000, but the majority of those on the state level are less than $1,000.

"Our goal is to have more software engineers available in Utah," said Don Kleinschnitz, vice president of development at Symantec. "We want to generate excitement and interest to convert students to studying math and science."

According to research done in 2007 by the National Science Foundation, the number of students enrolling in science and engineering programs is growing at half the rate of total college enrollment, which means a smaller percentage of new students are studying math and sciences than in the past.

"The number of students studying science and engineering is desperately low," Kleinschnitz said. "We're trying to build a larger available base of software engineers."

Science Buddies, based in Carmel, Calif., is working together with Symantec to help build interest in the fairs and in sciences in general. They provide ideas and promote competitions to build students' interest in science.

"Some of these students will become our nation's next generation of computer scientists and software engineers," said Kenneth Hess, founder and president of Science Buddies, in a news release.

The winners of the scholarships will be chosen near the end of March, with one winner at each Utah regional science fair.

More information on the scholarships can be found on the Science Buddies Web site at sciencebuddies.org.

Copyright Brigham Young University 3 Mar 2008