La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks won first-place honors at the California State Science Fair that took place May 2 and 3 at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

Of the 36 junior and senior divisions covering 22 subject areas, Ventura County students won four first- through third-place awards overall, with La Reina winning two of the four awards, including the only first place.

La Reina eighth-grader Arianna Wood won first place in the plant biology junior division for her project “Improving the Food Supply and Environment Worldwide: Using Adjuvants to Augment Organic and Conventional Herbicides.”

In her study, Arianna combined different levels of an inexpensive additive with different levels of herbicides in order to discover the most cost-effective method of killing weeds so that food crops could flourish.

La Reina eighth-grader Alicia Sadowski won third place in the environmental sciences junior division for her project titled “Oil Spills and Dispersants: A Deadly Duo?” She examined the effects of oil dispersants used to treat oil spills.

The adviser for both projects was Marilyn Usher, La Reina science teacher.

In the science fair, the county winners move on to compete at the state level. This year saw 1,000 participants from 403 schools.