Four Cherokee County Students Head to State Science Fair With Projects on Wind Energy, Wearable Tech and Cancer Research

Middle and high schoolers from E.T. Booth, Cherokee, and Sequoyah bring Cherokee County to the statewide competition at UGA

Four Cherokee County School District students are headed to the Georgia Science and Engineering Fair at the University of Georgia after earning Honorable Mention at a regional science competition, the district announced March 23.

The four represent three CCSD schools across middle and high school grades — a spread that signals the district's student research culture runs deep, not just at one standout campus.

At E.T. Booth Middle School in Woodstock, seventh-grader Hudson Gillentine will compete with "Watts in Your Walk: Using Nano-Enhanced Triboelectric Wearables," a project exploring how everyday movement might be converted into usable electrical energy. Fellow seventh-grader Pranav Vasishta advances with "Harnessing Multi-Directional Wind Energy Using the O-Wind Turbine," which examines a spherical turbine design capable of capturing wind from multiple directions. Both projects land in the Energy: Sustainable Materials & Design category, and both students were sponsored by E.T. Booth teacher Adrianna Flieger.

The high school entries push into biomedical territory. Amanda Michno, an 11th-grader at Cherokee High School in Canton, earned her spot with "Analysis of Nrf2 in Regulating Intestinal Homeostasis" — research focused on a protein pathway linked to inflammation and cellular health in the gut — competing in the Biomedical & Health Sciences category under the sponsorship of teacher Robin Barnhorn. Natalie Pereira, an 11th-grader at Sequoyah High School, also in Canton, advances with "Observing Drug Resistance in a Multiple Myeloma (t4:14) Cell Line," examining how a specific subtype of blood cancer responds to treatment. Pereira was sponsored by teacher Amberly Buchanan.

The Georgia Science and Engineering Fair is the state's premier student research competition, held annually at the University of Georgia. Students who advance from regional fairs go up against top young scientists from across Georgia, with the highest finishers eligible to represent the state at national and international competitions — a pipeline that has launched careers in research, medicine and engineering.

The regional competition was supported by local sponsors Cobb EMC and Gas South, alongside the CCSD Board of Education. Cobb EMC is the electric membership cooperative serving much of Cherokee County; Gas South is a natural gas provider with a broad presence across the Atlanta metro area. Both have been consistent backers of educational programs in the region.

For Cherokee County families, these four projects are a concrete reminder of what is happening inside local classrooms: a seventh-grader in Woodstock is engineering wearable power generators, and an 11th-grader in Canton is studying cancer cell drug resistance at a level that will now be judged on a statewide stage.