My after-school High Altitude Balloon (HAB) program, Project Horizon, was created to promote interest in atmospheric studies, while designing and engineering experiments to go into near space.  So, original research was a core component of my program.  I heard about JSHS, but never truly looked into it or considered it as part of my STEM Club.   

I don't know when or how I finally connected the dots, but it made perfect sense to me to have my students use their HAB experiments as a possible entry into the competition.  I offered this option to my HAB students and was able to convince two female students to participate.

One of the students was completing a study of the red shift/blue shift of the light spectrum in space.  The other student designed an experiment to measure the effects of temperature on the speed of sound.   Both of these experiments seemed to be extremely interesting and worthy of a JSHS entry.  To my surprise both students received an invitation to the European Regionals and present their research to the judges.  

There are two categories (poster presentation and oral presentation).  Those students presenting oral presentations have a greater chance of being selected to go to nationals, so we were very pleased that both submissions were rated high enough for an oral presentation.

I recently purchased a Coffee Can radar system for the club hoping that one of the students would take an interest in the RF capabilities and the numerous options for research.  I had three seniors that were very interested initially, however, the problem is that they are "seniors" and we all know what happens to seniors as the school year moves along.

Bottom Line, I love JSHS and try to attract students every year now.  The problem is that students typically are not willing to put in that kind of time for an afterschool program.  Schools offering research clearly have the upper hand in that department.