St Augustine Science Fair

More than two dozen students at St. Augustine School presented projects at a science fair today (Wednesday). I knew about it and attended because I was asked to help judge it.

You might wonder what kinds of science projects grade school kids do. The projects were all supposed to test a hypothesis with some kind of experiment. The students then were to write up the results in a paper and present it with a poster. Examples of the sorts of questions they were asking were:

What cleaners remove stains best?
Do crickets chirp more when they are warm or when they are cold?
How do various liquids degrade egg shells (which are similar to teeth)?
Will mud bricks be stronger if sand, gravel, or hay is added?
How does adrenalin affect the heart rate of water fleas?
What brand of paper towels is more absorbent?
What disinfectant kills bacteria best?
Does matte nail polish last longer than glossy?
What foods mold most quickly?

A lot of the ideas came from the Internet.

 The posters ranged in quality from rudimentary to very elaborate. Some of them were better than the average of those I saw at the SJC Student Colloquium a month or two ago. (I did not post on the Colloquium this year, but I did a few years ago.)

A few of the exhibits even showed what happened in their experiements, such as the one below that was looking at the effects of fabric softener on the flammability of fabrics.

In addition to giving students some understanding of how much of science is done, this project is also trying to develop some skill for giving short explanations or presentations. Here many of the students struggled--they wanted to read the presentation that was on the poster. Those who could speak without the poster stood out. However, they all did a better job than I did. I messed up my evaluation forms so that I doubt if my input helped much. Fortunately, there were four other judges who did not mess up their forms.